New to Beer Tools and have a few Questions

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egaberik
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Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2010 2:42 am

New to Beer Tools and have a few Questions

Post by egaberik »

Hey All. I'm completely new to Beer Tool, this forum, and relatively new to homebrewing with only 4 brews under my belt. I just recently got a Mac and was introduced to Beer Tools. Question is I have a couple recipes that are all grain and right now I am only a Extract Brewer. Is there a way I can enter an all grain recipe into the program and have it convert me an extract recipe? Also it is late at night and maybe I am just being dumb right now but is there any resources that will give me detailed info on how to set up my equipment in the program? I think I understood most of it in the manual but there were a few questions I had that I will get back to you with in the morning. Hopefully this newbie didn't sound too dumb with those questions and look foward to a response. Thanks for the help guys.

Eric
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slothrob
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new to BTP

Post by slothrob »

BTP will not automatically convert all-grain recipes to extract. It will help you in working through the conversion, however, due to it's powerful recipe formulation abilities. I'd be glad to help you get started on learning to make those conversions, if you need any assistance.

I think you will find the dialog windows that pop-up for the equipment when you create the entries to be generally self-explanatory. For example, if you ever create a mash tun, you'll see that it asks for you to add hot water, then enter temperatures after specific times. The program will then use this to predict future water temperatures. If you have any specific questions, just ask.
BTP v2.0.* Windows XP
egaberik
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Post by egaberik »

Thanks for the reply. I would love some help on making those conversions as I have no idea how to do it. I'm sure its not to hard but I just don't know how to start.

Eric
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slothrob
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AG to Extract

Post by slothrob »

It's mostly about learning which grains need to be mashed and which can be steeped (mostly cara-, caramel and crystal malts), then replacing the base malts with the appropriate amount of extract. Once you've done it a few times it gets pretty easy, when it's possible for a particular recipe.

Post one and we can work through it, then you'll start to get the idea.
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egaberik
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Post by egaberik »

Alright hopefully I have one that will work for converting. Not sure how much of the recipe we need so I will put up the whole thing.

Irish Red

7.0 lbs Marris Otter Malt
3.0 lbs Munich Malt
8.0 oz Cara Red 20
6.0 oz Crystal 120
4.0 oz Roasted Barley
1.5 oz Fuggle 4.6 Hop Pellets, 45 min
1.0 oz East Kent Goldings 4.5 Hop Pellets, 15 min
White Labs 004 Yeast or Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale Yeast
3.5 oz priming sugar

Direction:
Use a single-step infusion mash. Add 16 quarts of 164 Degree water to the crushed grain to establish mash tempurature of 153 Degree. Hold for 60 minutes. Sparge and collect 7.5 gallons of wort. Bring to a boil for 90 minutes and add Fuggles and East Kent Foldings hops at 45 and 15 minutes. Ferment at 65 Degree until completion. Bottle condition or keg at 2.0 volumes of CO2.
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slothrob
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convert to extract

Post by slothrob »

That's a little tough.
The Maris Otter, and Munich Malt need to be mashed.

The Munich Malt can be replaced with a Munich Extract (I know this is available from Northern Brewer and Williams Brewing and also made by Alexanders, Weyermann, and probably some others), which is usually 50% munich and 50% Pale or Pilsner Malt.

If you enter the 10# of base malt into BTP, with a typical 75% assumed efficiency, you see that the OG from this part of the recipe would be 1.053. Uncheck the 7# of Maris Otter and you see that the Munich Malt contributes 1.016.

So, replacing these with Liquid Munich Extract, and remembering that it's only 50% Munich Malt, we can increase the amount of extract until we hit 1.032 to account for the Munich. I come up with 4.8# of Liquid Munich Extract.

Then, you can add in some Dry British Extra Light Extract until you get back up to the OG of 1.053. I come up with 2.3# of a Dry British Extra Light Extract. You could probably round it to 5# and 2# if you wanted to use even pounds.

Once you've got that figured out, you can add in the remaining grains for steeping.
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egaberik
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Post by egaberik »

Thanks for all the help. I appreciate it and will for sure try this out.

Eric
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slothrob
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good luck

Post by slothrob »

Good luck. Let me know if you need more help.
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