Fermentables: Goal and Percentages

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Looking for some clarification or direction...

I'm building a recipe based on recommendations of percentages. My goal is 1.060 OG. I want the following:
75% base malt
8% another base malt
8% caramel malt
8% another caramel malt
1% roast malt​

I set the goal at 1.060, and set each percentage accordingly and are displayed as desired. However, the grain weight is different across the three 8% grains (in pounds, 0.81, 1.04, 1.02). I'm thinking that at 8% of the recipe, these weights should be the same, not different.

I save the recipe, exit the page, and return to the recipe. I find that the percentages have changed: 69.2%, 10.7%, 8.3%, 10.5%, 1.3%

What am I doing wrong?

Link:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/951072/american-amber-ale
 
Looking for some clarification or direction...

I'm building a recipe based on recommendations of percentages. My goal is 1.060 OG. I want the following:
75% base malt
8% another base malt
8% caramel malt
8% another caramel malt
1% roast malt​

I set the goal at 1.060, and set each percentage accordingly and are displayed as desired. However, the grain weight is different across the three 8% grains (in pounds, 0.81, 1.04, 1.02). I'm thinking that at 8% of the recipe, these weights should be the same, not different.

I save the recipe, exit the page, and return to the recipe. I find that the percentages have changed: 69.2%, 10.7%, 8.3%, 10.5%, 1.3%

What am I doing wrong?

Link:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/951072/american-amber-ale
It looks like the % is actually the % of gravity contributions (technical term would be extract aka sugar in wort) and not the % of grain bill. So it's taking the PPG into account.
This is why it's using less weight for the higher potential grain aka ppg, one of the caramel malts is 34.5 PPG so it needs less weight to hit 8% of the total gravity.

However the issue comes up that the goal is adjusting according to weight, without taking PPG into account.

I think the two should work together, so that the percentage is maintained when using the goal seek feature. I'll investigateo confirm my suspicions and submit a request to the developers accordingly to improve these two features.
 
Since I don't use BF for recipe design, it's seldom that I comment on software strategy. In this case, I can't help but question why entering percentages of ingredients would cause consideration of anything other than the specific ingredient? Personally, I want to replicate the grain bill by using percentages . Isn't that why % is universal to batch size? Scaling is where color, bitterness and gravity come into the picture. Why should the brewer be overruled by someone's decision to rate an ingredient by it's sugar contribution. A few points in OG is something that can be worked out very simply without a discernable difference. Just curious.
 
Amen regardless of the OG the percentages should stay the same reflecting a true representation of recipie.
 
It looks like the % is actually the % of gravity contributions (technical term would be extract aka sugar in wort) and not the % of grain bill. So it's taking the PPG into account.
This is why it's using less weight for the higher potential grain aka ppg, one of the caramel malts is 34.5 PPG so it needs less weight to hit 8% of the total gravity.

However the issue comes up that the goal is adjusting according to weight, without taking PPG into account.

I think the two should work together, so that the percentage is maintained when using the goal seek feature. I'll investigateo confirm my suspicions and submit a request to the developers accordingly to improve these two features.

Understood! That brings up a question: When percentages are provided for a recommended recipe as I described, are those percentages of weight or of extract (gravity contributions)?

I see and hear these percentages for recipe design frequently in articles and on podcasts. This one was obtained from Josh Weikert's column, "Make Your Best" from Craft Beer and Brewing magazine. I can provide a link or quote if needed.
 
Understood! That brings up a question: When percentages are provided for a recommended recipe as I described, are those percentages of weight or of extract (gravity contributions)?

I see and hear these percentages for recipe design frequently in articles and on podcasts. This one was obtained from Josh Weikert's column, "Make Your Best" from Craft Beer and Brewing magazine. I can provide a link or quote if needed.

I'm fairly positive the standard is % of weight, so that's what we'll likely change, but I'll need to do some research to confirm.

I've also contacted Josh to confirm for your particular recipe and will get back to you.
 
I just looked at the Recipe Builder: It works on gravity point contribution. That's a more advanced way of formulating a recipe; however, the expected behavior should be percent by weight. Most recipes, when giving percentages, work in percent of total fermentable weight. In my example, I entered 25% of grist for Munich Dark (33 ppg) and American 6-Row (35 ppg). The weights from the calculator came out as 3.05# for Munich Dark, 2.87# for six-row. They should, using standard percentages, be the same.

I can imagine that there would be people out there who want to formulate based on gravity contribution of the grains and it might be possible to salvage the current code by adding a toggle that lets people select that option but when I see a recipe in, say, Zymurgy or I get one from a brewer, percentage weights are what I would imagine I'd be using, not percentage of contribution to total gravity.
 
I just looked at the Recipe Builder: It works on gravity point contribution. That's a more advanced way of formulating a recipe; however, the expected behavior should be percent by weight. Most recipes, when giving percentages, work in percent of total fermentable weight. In my example, I entered 25% of grist for Munich Dark (33 ppg) and American 6-Row (35 ppg). The weights from the calculator came out as 3.05# for Munich Dark, 2.87# for six-row. They should, using standard percentages, be the same.

I can imagine that there would be people out there who want to formulate based on gravity contribution of the grains and it might be possible to salvage the current code by adding a toggle that lets people select that option but when I see a recipe in, say, Zymurgy or I get one from a brewer, percentage weights are what I would imagine I'd be using, not percentage of contribution to total gravity.

That's my hope, along with remove the "goal" button and integrate this improved functionality into the recipe tools/scale feature. Not sure if that's what will happen, but I think that makes the most sense.
 

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