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Beersmith recipe scaling and crystal malts...

Da Meegs

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I have a question regarding how recipes scale. 

Recently I brewed a clone recipe of a commercial beer based on the recipe provided by the Brewing Network's 'Can You Brew It' show.  During the podcast the brewcasters commented on how the beer color was spot on to the commercial beer.  I know the recipes they provide are for 6 gallon batches and 70% efficiency.  On my own system, I typically get 78% efficiency.  I brewed the beer and did a 6 gallon batch that I scaled in Beersmith to my 78% efficiency (resulting in a reduction of all the grains).  The beer turned out nice and I'm very happy with it.  However, I brought the beer to my club meeting last night and we did a side-by-side with the commercial beer.  One thing that was noticeable right off the bat was that my beer was significantly lighter in color.  During our discussion I mentioned that I scaled the recipe in Beersmith from the 70% efficiency that was provided to my 78%.  A couple of the experienced brewers said that because Beersmith will scale all the ingredients down, including the Crystal malts, that was where the difference in color was coming from, and that I should not scale Crystal malts, only the base malts.  That seems to make some sense, however I do see when inputting a recipe that Crystal Malts are adding gravity points, so that makes me wonder if they shouldn't be scaled along with the base malts?? 

Can someone (Brad preferably) clear this up for me.

Thanks.  Ken.
 
Hi,
  Did you just scale efficiency or did you actually scale the entire recipe based on your equipment setup.  The latter is generally better.

  When you use the scale command the program does try to match color by adjusting it to have the same SRM value before and after.  It should be very close.  However, even small variations in color of the ingredients can make a difference on the final product.  For example did you use the same base malt they did?  Was the original recipe an exact color match to the commercial version?

Brad
 
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