Recipe Conversion?

[GilesTH]

I recently bought Brewing Classic Styles, and I'm importing a few of the must-try recipes into BeerSmith, using the exact specs in the book (70% efficiency, 7 gallons pre-boil, etc.) then scaling the recipe down for my 3 gallon brew system. The "problem" I'm running into is that, even BEFORE I scale down the recipe, all of JZ's numbers are WAY below mine. According to Beersmith (and then according to my numbers when I actually brew the recipes), I'm getting at least 1% higher ABV than the book says I'm supposed to get. Or, I guess, I'm running 8-15 gravity points higher OG depending on the style.

Now, I know the fastest way to fix this is drop the base malt. But when I'm DECREASING such a high percentage of base malt, how much of the specialty grains do I adjust? I know that with Shilling styles the only thing that's supposed to change is the base. But when I'm scaling down a red ale, should I leave all of the other grains the same and just drop the 2 row?

Thanks for the clarification. I can fiddle around with the malts a bit, but I want to make sure I'm not overthinking this.

[adamK]

I have found that for me, it is best to just scale the base malt, though that is likely system dependent (and slightly malt dependent). In theory, though, you should just convert them all to percentages and then use your system efficiency and the OG stated and let your software scale it all accordingly. So I would recommend trying it out both ways. Running tests like this forces you to have more beer, luckily.

[GilesTH]

I have found that for me, it is best to just scale the base malt, though that is likely system dependent (and slightly malt dependent). In theory, though, you should just convert them all to percentages and then use your system efficiency and the OG stated and let your software scale it all accordingly. So I would recommend trying it out both ways. Running tests like this forces you to have more beer, luckily.

Yeah, I'll try to stick to percentages. I just don't want to overdo it on the specialty grains, especially since I don't want to have mediocre beer, if I can help it .

But, you're right: having more beer, whether mediocre or extremely awesome is always a good thing.