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[MtnBrewer]

Converting an All Grain Recipe to Extractcontributed by MtnBrewerQ: I found a great all-grain recipe, but I'm an extract brewer. What can I do?A: The basic idea is to replace the base malt in the AG recipe with extract so that you end up with the same original gravity (OG) as the AG recipe. Assume that liquid extract (LME) is about 36 points per pound per gallon (ppppg) and dry extract (DME) is around 46 ppppg. Step 1, then, is to calculate how much extract to use. Use the following formulae:OG (in points) = 36 * W / V (LME), andOG (in points) = 46 * W / V (DME),where W = weight of extract (in lbs.) and V = volume of the batch (in gallons)Q: What should I do about the specialty grains?Any specialty grains (crystal malt, chocolate malt, etc.) in the recipe can be steeped with the exception of adjuncts that must be mashed such as flaked oats. So Step 2, is to remove the base malt (pale malt, pilsner malt, etc.) and anything that requires mashing from the original recipe and steep the specialty grains in a gallon or two of 150 degree water.Q: Great! Now, what about hops?A: If you're doing a partial boil, your hops utilization will be lower because of the higher gravity wort. Hence Step 3 is to increase the bittering hops by about 25-35% to compensate. Flavoring and aroma hops remain the same. If you're doing a full boil, then keep all the hops the same.Q: Is there anything else I have to do?A: No, just follow the recipe as written.Here's an example:Bull's Eye Bitter (all grain)5 gallons; OG: 1.055Grains:-- 8.75 lbs. pale malt (British)-- 0.5 lb. 120L crystal maltHops:-- 8.9 HBU Target hops (90 min.)-- 0.5 oz. Czech Saaz (0 min.)Yeast:-- Wyeast 1275 Thames Valley yeastLet's convert this to extract using Munton's DME55 = 46 * W / 5W = (55 * 5) / 46 = 6 lb.So we'll use 6 lb. of M & F DME instead of the pale malt and we'll steep the 120L crystal to extract some color and give the beer more body.Since the original recipe was for a 90 min. boil and we're only going to boil our extract recipe for 60 min., increase the bittering hops by a full 35% to about 12 HBU. If the hops are 11.1% AA, we need about 1.1 oz. of Target. So here's how the new recipe looks:Bull's Eye Bitter (extract w/ grains)5 gallons; OG: 1.055Extract and grains:-- 6 lbs. M & F DME-- 0.5 lb. 120L crystal maltHops:-- 12 HBU Target hops (60 min.) (1.1 oz. @ 11.1 AA%)-- 0.5 oz. Czech Saaz (0 min.)Yeast:-- Wyeast 1275 Thames Valley yeastQ: How do I choose the extract?A: One thing you might want to consider is to try to match the choice of extract as closely as possible to the style of the original recipe. For example, if you're making a festbier, you would probably be better off trying to find some Munich extract. In the example above, I used M & F extract because it's a British-style ale.Q: You mentioned above about adjuncts that need to be mashed. What can I do about them?A: If the all grain recipe includes grains or adjuncts that must be mashed (flaked oats for example), you can try to do a very small-scale mash instead of just steeping. To do this, add the adjuncts to about a pound of base malt to provide the enzymes and reduce the amount of steeping water to about 1.5 qt. per lb. of grain. Mash for about 30-45 minutes, then rinse the grain with about the same amount of 170 degree water. Also, since we've added some base malt, cut back the extract by about a half a pound.That's about all there is to it. Good luck.