Scaling Recipes

I recently installed the Beersmith 2 app on my ipad and have set up my equipment profile to brew 20 liter all grain batches.

When i find a recipe i like and save it then select edit to use my equipment profile, and then edit to scale the recipe to my equipment profile, whilst it adjusts the malt & hop ingedients etc, all of the parameters regarding the OG, Bitterness & colour change despite checking the box that says keep these the same when scaling.
Not sure if this is normal or if im doing something wrong or out of sequence? Any advice would be welcome.

Regards
Peter

It's an understandable issue.

When you enter their recipe, it should be matched to their brewing system and fermentation methods.

Once entered as it would be made on their system, only then do  you use the Scale Recipe function to match it to your system.

Along the way, some things may not scale linearly if you're matching color and IBUs. BeerSmith will adjust some of the ingredients within their capabilities to maintain specs. Uncheck the "match" box and the scale will be more linear, but you may need to choose which ingredients to adjust if you want to match specs.

I'm also, a bit confused with this scaling of recipes,
so if I want to edit an imported recipe to use my equipment, and also increase the batch size,
It sounds like you advise NOT to tick the "match" box.
But then you say to adjust some ingredients to match the specs.
What is the reason then for this option, and what difference does it make to the recipe?

The match specs box is there as one of many user options in BeerSmith. You can just as easily use the feature in all cases as not. It just depends on your goals as a brewer.

At larger volumes, extraction of malt color and hop bitterness can become more efficient. So, matching specs will sometimes make adjustments that aren't strictly linear in order to avoid too much of a specialty malt, for example. This can look odd to a brewer who is used to all ingredients being percentages.

When you're scaling between two systems with pretty close batch sizes, matching specs is the most accurate way to match the resulting beer.

Hi there,

Even though I just read through this thread I am still confused.

So I have an equipment profile set-up in BS 2. It is a 7 gallon pot and a 10 gallon cooler for a mashtun. Therefore, I tend to try and brew 5 gallon batches, but find myself having to scale that down to 4.5, sometime, so my pot isn't filled almost to the brim.

However, I get confused when trying to scale a recipe from a book/magazine that states it is a 6 gallon batch size.

What I do at present is I open BS 2, it defaults to my equipment profile and a 5 gallons batch size.

I then input the recipe as per the book/magazine exactly as written, and then change the batch size to 6 gallons manually. I then go to scale recipe and scale it to 5 gallons and then make any adjustments to the OG, IBUs, color, etc. using the sliders available so the numbers match as close to the original recipe as I want.

Is that the correct procedure?

Thanks

When recipes are published in magazines and books, they usually state the  target efficiency at which the recipe is written around.  I have set up a "published" equipment profile, which I use to enter recipes from various sources.  I can adjust the total efficiency and losses within that equipment profile to reflect the published specs and enter the recipe changing the equipment profile in the default to this 'published' equipment profile.

Then I can use the scale recipe to set the recipe to my equipment profile and batch size.

There is a bug with that check-box. I found it doesn't scale all ingredients. I recently scaled a roggenbier and the rye did not scale. Things worked better when the check box was not checked.

Mark

Oginme said:

When recipes are published in magazines and books, they usually state the  target efficiency at which the recipe is written around.  I have set up a "published" equipment profile, which I use to enter recipes from various sources.  I can adjust the total efficiency and losses within that equipment profile to reflect the published specs and enter the recipe changing the equipment profile in the default to this 'published' equipment profile.

Then I can use the scale recipe to set the recipe to my equipment profile and batch size.

Click to expand...

Hi there,

Hi there,
So when you set-up this published equipment profile are you just assuming what their equipment set-up is based on the recipe then?

Or could you just use one of the defaults in beersmith like the Pot and Cooler (5 Gal/19L) - All grain equipment profile then enter the recipe and then scale it from there to equipment individual equipment profile and the batch size wanted?

Thanks for the help.

Thanks

I'm one of those newbie "outcasts" who is just getting started in home brewing.....1 gallon batches.  I am an engineer who is more interested in processes than drinking beer.....I love ale, but just won't be drinking that much.  Before I sign up for BeerSmith 2, I would like to know if it is readily adaptable to scaling 5 gallon batches to my size.?

Absolutely.  That is the precise function of the 'scale recipe' function -- to scale any recipe to any size you wish to brew.