double batch vs scale reciepe

I just scaled a recipe from 6 to 12 gallons. I expected to see the grain amounts (approximately) double. While the 2 row was close, the wheat and munich malts were quite a bit less than double.

Is this normal, and what works better using the scale, or manually doubling everything?

When you check the "match original gravity, color and bitterness" box, BeerSmith makes some adjustments based on scaling some ingredients. Simply, some ingredients have a lot of punch and you don't need to increase those linearly.

Unchecking that box let's BeerSmith just up the ingredient amounts by maintaining the percentages, but you may have to adjust things to get back to the target specs.

Another quick down & dirty method for scaling a recipe is to just click on the OG, IBU and SRM bars under the design window. Here you can simply name a new spec based on the volume of your equipment profile. The changes will be linear, except for the SRM scale, which will only adjust according to grains you've already put into the recipe.

One minor drawback to this quickie method is with hops. If you have a contribution of 0 IBU or a dry hop, it will not be scaled up. You'll have to adjust that separately.

That's interesting.  Could making larger batches be a way to cut down on specialty grain usage?

Yes, usually. It takes a surprisingly small amount of specialty malt to make a large flavor impact.

grathan said:

That's interesting.  Could making larger batches be a way to cut down on specialty grain usage?

Click to expand...

trub losses don't change much either, so your efficiency increases..