AAmcle,
(1) The NB recipes can be used perfectly, if the Temperatures/times are written, and also the Hop amounts/Times are stated.

(2) Any Single Malt And Single Hop (SMASH) recipe, you can find....look over http://beersmith.com/blog/2012/10/24/sm ... hop-beers/

For good Information for making your Own Recipe!!

I'm just going to jump in here quickly...

1. Any all-grain recipe that has been written correctly can be scaled and used by any other all-grainer. BIAB is all-grain and therefore any correctly written all-grain recipe can be used.

2. Nearly all of the all-grain recipes you come across on the internet and in nearly all books, are either impossible to copy by any other all-grainer or will take a lot of deduction skills to copy correctly.

3. Most home-brewers using commercial software think that if they have copied/scaled a recipe, they have done it correctly but...

4. Most commercial software allows the user to distort and compromise the integrity of a recipe with the press of a single button. I've just had a rant on this here.

aamcle, the recipes from Northern Brewer can be scaled in the Calculator or the BIABacus (much easier) in a few seconds. The recipe format that Northern Brewer uses still lacks some very critical information from memory such as the AA% of the hops they have used. That's pretty basic info to provide in a recipe which is a bit worrying but anyway...

If you use any other program to input that Northern Brewer recipe, it will take you ages to get it right and, even when you think you have it right, I can pretty much guarantee there will be a major error somewhere.

Do yourself a favour and buy "Brewing Classic Styles". This will give you a recipe base. Looking/using recipes on the internet is almost always woeful.

So much for being quick ,
PP

aamcle wrote:All in all a bit disappointing, but at least the NB recipes are for 5us gal / 18 litre and that suits me very well I'll not need to scale them.

There's two problems here in just this single sentence unfortunately aamcle. The first and least important is that 5 US gal is not 18 litres it is about 19 L. Straight away, things can start getting misinterpreted/distorted.

Much more importantly though, the NB recipes actually may not suit you very well unless you are sure of what they mean by 5 US gallons. When they say 5 US gallons do you think they mean...

1. 5 US gallons at the end of the boil?
2. 5 US gallons once you have chilled the wort in your kettle? (The critical volume key needed for accurate scaling.)
3. 5 US gallons into your fermentor?
4. 5 US gallons into your bottles?

If both of you mean number 2 above, then you are good to go with no scaling required. But, I know the Northern Brewer volume number of 5 US gallons does not refer to number 2 above so, straight away, your recipe is likely to be compromised unless you get lucky. In fact, depending on your level of knowledge, it could end up being compromised severely - up to 20%.

So, disappointing as my post was, it is the reality. There are some positives though no matter what route you take.

1. No matter how bad your software, scaling, etc, it is pretty hard to brew a crap all-grain beer.

2. If you want to get educated to the highest level in recipe scaling and integrity then you have come to the right place.

Whichever way you go, just remember one thing from here, if you ever brew a good recipe and want it to have integrity, clearly state what the volume of your ambient wort was. In other words, the volume of your wort at the end of the boil once it was chilled. It is the most basic and critical volume figure to convey to another brewer yet it is seldom seen.

PP

Only got time for one post today and thought I'd try and cheer you up a bit aamcle .

You are correct that Northern Brewer means 5 gallons into the fermentor. You also want 5 gallons into the fermentor. So, that sounds all good and you'd think you should be able to just use exactly the same weight of ingredients. And, if you do use the same weight of ingredients, you will get the same beer providing...

1. You end up with the same amount of kettle trub as Northern Brewer.

2. You get the same kettle efficiency (measured any time during the boil) as Northern Brewer.

In other posts, we deduced that Northern Brewers kettle trub is about 0.5 gallon. You would probably get something like that as well. You'd also probably get close to the same kettle efficiency so all should would work out fairly okay in this scenario.

Just imagine though if a different brewer gave you their recipe and said it is for 5 gallons into the fermentor but they didn't tell you that their kettle trub losses were say 1.2 gallons (not unreasonable). If you used the same ingredients but you only had 0.5 gallon of kettle trub, your whole recipe will be incorrect by about 12.5%.

Combined with other discrepancies, it is easy for recipes to get distorted very quickly.

However, if the other brewer gives us the Volume of Ambient Wort (VAW) of the recipe (that is the volume into fermentor plus kettle to fermentor losses*) then we can scale the recipe safely and instantly. It's that easy and that simple. This VAW number is the key to a recipe's integrity.

Anyway aamcle, you have two options on this recipe. You could brew with the ingredients weights they have listed and, as I said above, you should be in the ball park in this instance.

Alternatively, seeing as we, in another thread already worked out 'the key' for Northern Brewer Recipes, if you post a link to the one you want to copy along with your kettle dimensions, I'll scale the recipe for you accurately. The only time it takes is to type in the ingredients and 'the key' which in this case is 20.83 litres (5.5 US gallons).

Once that is done anyone will be able to scale that recipe safely and accurately for their own kettle in a matter of seconds.


PP

* Same as your end of boil volume once cooled to ambient which we have, in the past, called EOBV-A.

Brewing Classic Styles would definitely be one to get a paper copy of .

We probably should cover two more issues before I post your scaled recipe. I know you and anyone else will be impatient and just want an instant answer (the scaled recipe) but I think answering a question completely will save you hours and hours of asking questions in the future and then probably getting wrong or incomplete answers.

I have to get going so will only cover one issue now and that is the Northern Brewer recipes themselves. Firstly that kolsch recipe is actually for 5 gallons in the fermentor so the small kettle problem will apply to both recipes. [EDIT: I was incorrect. There is a 3 gallon Kolsch recipe here.]

The other thing with these recipes is that I'm not too sure of the knowledge level of whoever is writing them. For example, I'm not sure I would call that kolsch recipe a kolsch. Other critical information is missing such as the alpha acid percentage of the hops used. Not even a total IBU figure has been provided. (Mind you of it had, this would only act as a small clue - that's a whole other problem we'll totally avoid here.)

This lack of critical hop information means it could be easy to get our hop schedule 20% wrong. For example, the hops used in the bitter recipe, East Kent Goldings, can be anywhere from 4.5 to 6.5%AA.

I'll use 5.5%AA when I do the recipe but I always question the integrity of a recipe when I see critical info like this mising.

Another good reason to have "Brewing Classic Styles" is so you can check a recipe's basic structure.

Gotta go but will cover the second issue later.

PP, a Few rhetorical Questions,

where can anybody purchase East Kent Goldings at 4.5%AA or 6.5%AA???

Next Question, where does someone verify the AA% of ANY hop, that is purchased since the hop "AA" diminishs over time and there is seldom any DATE(other than Year) in the Hop Container?????

Joshua - a couple of examples for the UK, look
here

or

here

Good point about the deterioration though

Mally, Thanks, that is on point.

A beer recipe is about Flavor, and a simple recipe should state IBU and type of hop.

The Problem with Northern Brewer recipes, is they are kits. The Hops are included, so what you get, is what you have.

Unless you have the KIT, you won't know what strength NB chose!

Also, at http://www.bjcp.org/stylecenter.php you can download Style Guidlines for most Beers,

http://www.bjcp.org/docs/2008_Guidelines.pdf

Don't want to get side-tracked here so will just address the second issue mentioned in my last post.

aamcle wrote:As for my boiler, it's a bit small, so I will need to follow the maxi biab procedure.

This is the other big issue. As soon as you step away from a full-volume mash, a whole can of worms is opened. The first thing we need to knock on the head is the perception that a small kettle can still give you as much beer as you want. Obviously it cannot but there are many forum threads about, including one here on BIABrewer.info, that imply you can get a miraculous amount of beer from a small kettle.

What we need to start emphasising is that as soon as you step away from the single vessel concept, you step into a total can of worms. You step into a world where one or more of the following are affected... equipment, labour ingredients, quality and knowledge demands.

...

I have been thinking occasionally about how I would reply here since I left for work this morning. I wanted to make my repy simple and easy. I intended to say that I could make some suggestions as to how we can use a small pot sensibly. I intended to say that dilutions will cost you money and maybe quality but sparging will cost you in labour, equipment and vessels.

I then thought, at about lunchtime, that a table would be a great way of explaining the complexity/pitfalls/advantages of non full-volume brewing.

I think that one thing that very few brewers realise is that there are about a hundred different ways to produce wort. The following pic of the table is one more attempt at me trying to answer many scenarios in a single post.

NOTE: This table is not correct/finished. It should have "Draft" stamped on it.

Nice table PP, that should explain a lot to anybody interested that studies it.

I'm a bit disappointed though. When you said here is a pic of my table I was expecting a nice piece of hand crafted oak furniture!

[mally: . I actually just put an edit above that table as it should have had a big "DRAFT" stamp on it. It is not complete - Ran out of patience and light beer .]

Aamcle, the point of that last post was to point out some of the issues that have to be considered when straying from full-volume. I'll come back to this in a later post. Regardless of whether we need to use any Maxi-BIAB variations, we always need to start our recipe off as a full-volume one. In this post, I want to give you the full-volume (pure BIAB) recipe.

Northern Brewer Extra Special Bitter - Master Recipe*

Any brewer can instantly scale the following recipe for their own equipment by inputting their kettle diameter and height into Section B. Also in Section B they can increase or decrease their desired Volume into Fermentor.If no warnings appear, the brewer simply buys the weight of ingredients shown on the far right of Sections C and D**. The amount of water they need to use, 'Total Water Needed (TWN) is the first number in Section K.

For full-volume brewers, it's as simple as that.

The sheet allows for many other options but these should not be necessary for most brewers.

Dealing with the Red Warnings

Aamcle, you of course, have red warnings appearing as your kettle is small. In the next post I do here, I'll give a few hints on what you can do to get rid of those warnings.


PP

* I have changed mash and boil times of the recipe to 90 minutes.
** If the hops you will be using vary in their AA% from those used in the original recipe, type the new AA% under 'Substitutions' in Section D.

PistolPatch wrote:Firstly that kolsch recipe is actually for 5 gallons in the fermentor so the small kettle problem will apply to both recipes.

I just realised that there were two kolsch recipes in the link, one for 5 gallons and one for 3 so I have edited my post accordingly. Let me know though if I make such an error.

Also aamcle, are you still with us? I don't want to write the next post until I am sure that you have a handle on what we have covered so far. Considering the file in the above post hasn't been downloaded yet then I'm assuming I should wait a bit .

Please let me know though if anything written so far does not make sense or is too overwhelming*.


PP

* Maxi-BIAB is much more complex than the concepts we have covered above. All software, besides the BIABacus, sidesteps Maxi-BIAB because they are not built to handle it. The BIABacus does make Maxi-BIAB variations not only possible but also relatively simple but it is important that the above posts are understood before we go any further. This obviously requires any reader taking some time to study the above. A quick skim is not going to give any value unfortunately.

PistolPatch wrote:aamcle, are you still with us? I don't want to write the next post until I am sure that you have a handle on what we have covered so far.

aamcle, I have put several hours of time and thinking into this thread. Usually I try and personalise my responses but since writing my last post here, you have asked for answers in other threads on different subjects, which, I assume, means we have lost you here or that you just want short, stoccatto answers that may or may not end up serving you well.

Either way, on this forum, it's not a bad idea to at least acknowledge that someone has spent several hours of their time just thinking on your one question. In this instance it was me .

I'm sure I bore to death a lot of readers here but I do have one PM explicitly asking me to continue writing to this thread. I'm a pretty good poster here and put all my concentration into what I write. It's going to be pretty annoying to have to go back and put my attention back onto this one thread.

Just for future notice, if you don't like my attention to detail on your one question, just send me a PM telling me, "I'm not interested in you spending time on me," or "I didn't understand your answer," or even, "I don't like you/your style."

I can wear that very easily. Finding time to backtrack on prior thinking and trains of thought? Not easy, a total waste of time.

Anyway, will try and get back into this thread in the next few days Tony. See? I haven't forgotten you ,
PP

Thanks for getting back to us Aamcle - appreciate that . As mentioned will get my head back into this thread in the next few days to keep Tony happy. Thanks to you also joco. Glad you find some of my ramblings of use .

Well, that is a great excuse Aamcle ,

I'm not much use or help on things like that but love reading about them. And don't take my occasional grumpiness here too seriously. I almost always enjoy the forum but, at some times, I end up with so many 'threads' going, that I'm sure I end up losing a few or, at least time. I also still can't believe how much time this place costs me personally. People just seem to ask really good questions that end up absorbing/interesting me at least .

I'm sure I have also not replied to a few direct questions I have been asked here because I have been distracted elsewhere so thanks again Aamcle for handling my grumpy moment so well.


PP