Adjusting Recipes On The Fly

[hamstringsally]

still trying to understand it totally but when your brewing and take your pre boil gravity lets say i pull more % out of my efficiency i then have to adjust my hops to suit.

If i get more points pre boil what do i adjust to balance the recipe out to reproduce the same recipe but with less efficency (my old brewing gear) that i had brewed 6 months ago?

cheers

hammo

 

[luvbeer]

In my opinion wouldn't be changing the hop additions unless you were way off with your efficiancy. I have missed it many times and doesn't seem to make any difference. Changing major things like bittering on the fly can be dangerous. if you have a recipe designer you may be able to calibrate. cheers

 

[Wolfy]

As a home brewer you probably can't make the same beer exactly as you made it in the past, however you can reproduce it in a way that it's virtually the same or even tastes the same.
An important factor for many beers is the bitterness/gravity ratio, so if you want to reproduce the same beer, keeping that ratio the same would be very useful - which is why home brewers check the gravity going into the kettle and (if it much higher or lower than expected) often adjust hop additions to maintain the expected bitterness/gravity ratio.

However, since it appears you are comparing making beer on your new gear to your old gear, any adjustment for changes in efficiency can be made before you brew using most any brewing software - that way you can use more or less grain in your mash and not have to worry about making changes on-the-fly once the wort is in the kettle.

 

[glenwal]

If you want the same beer, id dilute it pre boil to the same gravity as you wanted, then scale up your hop additions to match the larger size batch.