Thanks to you folks, I’m giving the below recipe a go (extract) and I had some questions.
-Is 6.6 gallons pre boil normal for ~ 5 gallons? I’ve never used that much.
-“Strain and sparge through the grains” is mentioned. Can you explain how to do this with an extract recipe? Is it simply pouring some of the water through the grain bag again?
My pre-boil is 7.1 gallons for 5 gallons finished.
-1.1 boil off
-0.5 for the kettle
-0.5 for the fermenter
=5.0 (sometimes)
I add an additional .55 gallons for every half hour of additional boil time.
Pre-boil is really what works for your setup. Wind, temp, kettle size, and more affect your boil off rate.
I would interpret “strain and sparge” the same as you. I never did that when I brewed extract with grains. I simply used the dunk/tea bag method and allowed it to drip over the pot.
Why the use of LME and DME here? How different would it taste with just DME?
Secondly, if I do use only DME, can I simply add until I come up to the same ABV in Beersmith instead of converting the math?
I would imagine it is because the LME comes in 3.3 lb cans and DME is less messy to weigh. You could go all DME without harm. Just watch out for scorching and clumping. Add the DME after steeping but and with the flame off. Stir really well and start heating again.
Edit - Don’t forget to convert the LME to DME if you go this route. LME is roughly 20% water, so you would multiply the 6.6 by .8 to get 5.28 lbs DME
As was said before, you multiply the LME by 0.8 to get the equivalent of DME. But I’m lazy like you, and just let my software take care of it. Just play with the amount of DME until the OG matches your recipe. But I would go by original gravity, and not ABV if you’re tweaking this in your software.