Talking Percentages

[ApresSkiBrewer]

I had that question for a long time as well... At Siebel they've been teaching us to formulate/describe recipes as % of gravity, but I have a funny feeling it varies greatly from brewer to brewer. I'm going to make it a habit to do it as % of extract, but just specify on the recipes so that people will know in case they want to do ingredient substitution.

[ukbrewer]

calling the pope for clarification.

% of weight
or
% of gravity

???

[ukbrewer]

Jamil responded and it's % weight.

[wunderbier]

Yeah, I emailed him about that too. By weight indeed. But I was thinking about this and thought of two places it probably is by extract. First, sugar additions. I'm always speaking by extract when talking about sugar additions. I checked with another homebrewing friend of mine and this is his understanding as well. Second, industrial brewing. I can see how, if deg Plato = $, it would be advantageous to a big brewer to think in terms of extract. Maybe it's a bit of an exaggeration, but it seems those guys are building recipes from accounting ledgers and not flavor contributions. Perhaps that's why ApresSkiBrewer is learning in terms of % by extract at Siebel.

[UcfLumberjack]

So i've been thinking about something. (uh oh... here it comes....)

When brewer A shares a recipe with brewer B, but brewer B has better efficiency than brewer A, should the whole recipe be scaled, or just the basemalt? The specialty grains give the same amount of flavor no matter what the efficiency is right?

[jamilz]

Generally, yes you only scale the base malt to account for efficiency. If you're wildly off in terms of matching efficiency (they're at 90% and you're at 60%) then you might also scale the specialty grains. But normally just scale the base malt(s).

If you need to adjust for batch size (brew length) then you scale all of the ingredients, from grain to hops to yeast.

[TheMadHopper]

JZ.... I know some guys said they emailed you and you said it was % by weight, but can we get a little confirmation in the thread, please?

[jamilz]

Believe your brothers.