Converting AG recipes to extract

[Mike1892]

Hi there,

I am planning to have a go at cloning a beer called Trade Winds by Cairngorm Brewery. I have found an All Grain recipe on line, but was wondering how this can be converted to extract? From googling, I understand that you should use approx 3/4 as much extract as grain, but, looking at the below recipe, I am not clear whether I should use 1kg wheat and steep it for an hour, or use 750g of wheat malt extract. If I was to use approx 2.5kg pale malt extract, and 750g wheat malt extract (3/4 of the amount of the grains), i would be using 3.25kg of malt, which would be a pretty powerful brew compared to the original beer, which is 4.3%.

The recipe I found is as follow:

Yeast - US-05

Fermentable Colour lb: oz Grams Ratio
Pale Malt 5 EBC 7 lbs. 2.6 oz 3250 grams 73.8%
Wheat Malt 3.5 EBC 2 lbs. 3.3 oz 1000 grams 23%
Crystal Malt 130 EBC 0 lbs. 5.3 oz 150 grams 3%
Black Malt 1300 EBC 0 lbs. 0.4 oz 10 grams 0.2%

Hop Variety Type Alpha Time lb: oz grams Ratio
Magnum Whole 14.2 % 90 mins 0 lbs. 0.5 oz 15 grams 70.2%
Perle Whole 9.45 % 10 mins 0 lbs. 0.7 oz 20 grams 21.1%
Perle Whole 9.45 % 5 mins 0 lbs. 0.5 oz 15 grams 8.7%
Dried elderflowers 25g post boil steep (30mins)
Dried elderflowers 25g Dry Hop (or dry flower!) day 3/4.

Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.043
Final Gravity: 1.010
Alcohol Content: 4.3% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 35 EBU
Colour: 17 EBC

Any advice welcome.

Mike.

 

[Mike1892]

just bumping this thread back to the surface in case anyone can help. thanks

 

[rodwha]

https://byo.com/stories/issue/item/616-extract-to-all-grain-and-back

http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/how-to-brew/3-simple-steps-converting-grain-recipes-extract/

http://www.jaysbrewing.com/2011/11/17/lazy-chart-for-converting-dme-lme-grain/

So it seems that 3.25 kg of light dry malt, 1 kg wheat dry malt, and the mentioned malts steeped would get you fairly close.

I see you are using US-05 yeast? Is this not a special bitter?

 

[Mike1892]

Thanks for the feedback, those webpages look very helpful. From my reading of them, if I was using dry malt, wouldn't it be 1.95kg of light dry malt (0.6 x 3.25) and 0.6kg wheat malt (0.6 x 1)?

As I am likely to use LME rather than DME, this would be 2.5kg (0.75 x 3.25) pale malt extract and 0.75kg (0.75 x 1) wheat malt extract. (Before steeping the other grains).

The main part of my question was whether or not I should steep 1kg of wheat grains or add 0.75kg wheat extract. From what you are saying, it seems that I should use extract rather than steeping grains for the wheat.

It still leaves me a bit puzzled as to the gravity that will be achieved, as 3.25kg of malt extract (2.5 + 0.75) seems high for a 4.3% beer, given a 4% kit tends to be approx. 2.5kg of fermentables?

In terms of yeast, the Trade Winds isn't a bitter. A description of it can be found here: http://www.cairngormbrewery.com/index.php?com=ecom&func=view&id=4

Cheers,
Mike

 

[rodwha]

I'm not sure how I failed. You are correct with the figures.

So it would be 2436g of pale LME and 750g of wheat LME.

Wheat grains cannot be steeped. They'd need to be mashed.

According to the math this ought to get you in the ballpark for the gravity.

I'm curious about the elderflower. What does it taste like?

 

[Mike1892]

I didn't realise wheat grains couldn't be steeped. That decides it then, I will use Wheat LME.

In terms of the ABV - how do you work this out? I was just guestimating that if a 4% kit used a 1.5kg can (just realised this is actually generally 1.8kg, so 2.8kh in total rather than 2.5kg as per my previous post) and 1kg of brewing sugar/DME, then 3.25kg would be a fair bit stronger?

Some help with the maths would do me good!

thanks
mike

 

[rodwha]

The ABV is all determined by the gravity and the attenuation of the yeast. Extracts are pretty solid in the gravity points you can expect with the unknown being exactly what the yeast will do, though it ought to be within a narrow range. OG - FG x 131 will give the ABV, though priming sugar generally adds ~0.005-0.02% ABV also.

I'm not sure if I'm doing the math right, but it seems as though it comes out to ~5.5% ABV. But it doesn't seem possible the conversion ought to make it close enough to identical.

I'll look at this all a bit closer… I must be doing something wrong...

 

[rodwha]

Are you certain the recipe is accurate? I'm coming up with much more than 4.3% ABV

 

[rodwha]

Running it through Brewtoad I get very similar results as the recipe. It is accurate.

 

[rodwha]

When I subbed the grains (7.1 lbs 2-row, 2.2 lbs wheat) for 5.4 lbs light LME and 1.6 lbs of wheat LME I get similar numbers.

 

[Mike1892]

1043 - 1010 = 33. 33 x 131 = 4.323%. so that seems to work.

The thing I am not sure about is whether that extra 450g of fermentables (the difference between a 2.8kg kit and the 3.25kg that is required to make this recipe with extract) will only make a 0.3% difference to the beer?

 

[rodwha]

What is the extra 450g?

It's not a big deal if it's not a big deal to you. That is as long as it's not your flavor/color portion.

 

[Mike1892]

The 450g is 3.25 - 2.8.

The other way I can think of explaining what I mean is, I made a Youngs American APA kit recently which had a 3kg pouch of LME and a 60g bag of brewing sugar. That came out at 5.6% ABV. So if 2.8kg of fermentables = approx. 4%, and 3.6kg of fermentables = 5.6%, wouldn't 3.25 of fermentables = somewhere roughly in the middle ie approx. 5%? whereas what the all grain recipe estimates is 4.3% I must be misunderstanding something.

 

[Fil]

grab one of the many puter brewing apps beersmith is the popular all bells n whistles job, brewmate is a free less feature packed job,
and there are loads more too, any of them should allow you to plug in your extract mass/volume and batch size to calculate the OG and expected abv for you on the fly.

 

[rodwha]

Sugar gives a higher gravity over extract though. Sugar is something like .046 and LME is something like .036.