What does the % mean in recipes?

[mattybabsy]

looking to get into AG soon and starting to price grains etc- when I'm looking at a recipe with % instead of weight, how do I work out the weight needed of each malt?

 

[markp]

From a particular weight of grain, you will extract a particular amount of fermentable sugar. The amount of grain required for a particular recipe is determined by the ABV of the final drink and the amount of it you are going to make.

It is easier for someone to publish a recipe in terms of the percentages of grain used, then people can work out what weight is required for the amount of beer they are making.

Example - IPA @ 5% ABV
Pale Malt - 90%
Med. Crystal Malt - 5%
Tor. Wheat - 5%

These ratios would be consistient whether you are making 5 litres or 5 barrels.

 

[Runwell-Steve]

How much Malt you need is dependant on a number of things.

1. The Brew Length, i.e how much beer you are brewing.
2. Your efficiency, there are 2 efficiencies really, your Mash efficiency and your brewhouse efficiency.

Your Mash efficiency is how much of the potential sugars you manage to extract from the grains during the Mash
Your BrewHouse efficiency is how much of the beer you brew ends up in the fermenter, some will get lost en route due to dead space etc..

To work out the quantities you need either requires some maths, based on the potential extracts of the grains, or you could cheat and use a Tool to do it for you.

Personally I use Brew Mate, http://www.brewmate.net/ but there are others. You put the percentages in along with your brew length and dead spaces etcc and it works out the quantities of grain and water required to hit the require SG.

 

[mattybabsy]

perfect

thanks guys

 

[mattybabsy]

any programmes like that for mac?

 

[Swift Pint]

I use http://www.beersmith.com/download-beersmith/, which is available for PC and Mac (and can also be run on linux)

Its got loads and loads of features, which can be overwhelming at first, but its very powerful.
They do a 21 day free trial, so it's worth checking out.
I love using it for recipe developing, tweaking around ingredients etc, not to mention it takes all of the confusion and maths out of all the calculations and conversions!

 

[Aleman]

any programmes like that for mac?

Beer Alchemy

 

[markp]

I'm a 'BeerSmith' man as well........can't get to grips with the new version though and am still doing the recipes on my old laptop which has the old version :lol:

'Promash' is the other one that gets mentioned a lot.
There is also Wheelers 'Beer Engine'.....which is free.

Not sure what will work on a Mac though, sorry.