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Beer Kit and Scaling

broncosaurs

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I want to scale beer kits, all grain, to my equipment and BH numbers.  The grain, hops etc. are a fixed amount.  What is the best way to do this?  Change the water amount until the OG equals the kit numbers?

Thanks Brad
 
If I understand your question, you are looking to retain the specs of the original kit and are willing to adjust your volumes to target those numbers.


This being the case, I would start with your customized equipment profile and plug in the ingredients as per the kit.  See where the target numbers come out.  You can then decide if you want to adjust your volume to the fermenter to get your ending numbers to match the kit.  Once you make this adjustment for the OG, if the IBU is anywhere close to the recipe target (+/- 5 IBU), I would leave it as is and brew.  If the IBU is off a bit more than that, you may need to make an adjustment in addition times to get it within range.

 
Oginme, Thank you for getting back to me.  Yes just a simple adjustment to a kit recipe.  I went from three vessel w/sparge to BIAB and my efficiency went down.  Every kit i get my OG is a little low. I was WAY over thinking how to scale the water amounts to the kit to get the OG correct in BeerSmith.  So just to be clear, enter the kit recipe, use "My Equipment" then change the Batch Size in the Design window until my OG is correct?  I tried this on a few I have brewed and the IBUs don't change but 1-2 points, no big deal.

Add on question, So now I have the kit working and I would like to brew again but bring the Batch Size to 5.5gal.  To get the recipe to scal up the ingredents for the larger batch size I would use the Scale Recipe tool w/ match original gravity... checked?

Thank you Brad
 
That would be correct in using the scale recipe tool.  This will help account for the lower efficiency in your BIAB set up.  You may also want to inquire (assuming the kits are not prepackaged) if the supplier will crush the grains for a BIAB set up.  Some will/some won't.  Most suppliers crush to a 'safe' level as most brewers do not want to encounter a stuck sparge.  BIAB does not have that issue, so some will provide a finer crush to offset the lower extraction of skipping the sparge step.


 
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