hey all, can you give me some feedback on this recipe. I wanna brew a clone of Spotted Cow, found this recipe and thought it looked good. Ordered Ingredients but now after looking more at the recipe the mashing water amounts seem off. I'm using a mash and boil, the last three brews I made had a boil amount of around 6ish gal. this recipe says go to 8. Im only looking for a 5 gal. batch and usually only get about 5.25gal in the fermentor. https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/672/spotted-clown-new-glarus-spotted-cow-clone-
Any recipe written by someone else should be adjusted to your own boil off rate. And your own efficiency. And any other brew house parameter that's different from yours.
The resource is your own experience, i.e. observations you've made about your system and process. As an example, if you have, in the past, started with 6 gallons of wort pre-boil and ended up with 5 gallons of wort (not including hop absorption) post-boil after a 60 minute boil, then you know your boil-off rate is one gallon per 60 minutes. So for a 75 minute boil (as in the recipe you linked), you know you need to start with 6.75 gallons [5.5 gallons plus (1 gallon x 75/60)] of pre-boil wort, plus whatever wort volume will be absorbed by the hops, plus any other applicable losses (like kettle deadspace, if you have any). (This assumes you want 5.5 gallons into the fermenter, as in the linked recipe.) It's a lot easier if you can enter these observations as parameters in some type of brewing software. Are you using any software? Once you dial in your parameters in software, you can easily build recipes (your own or converted from others).
Easiest thing to do it set your rig up with five or six gallons of water and get it boiling then wait an hour. It will be pretty close to what you will see when boiling wort. The other stuff is hit or miss. I use brewcipher (made by VikeMan) and am too lazy to fiddle too much with the figures he has in there, but know that I will typically need to boil for 20 minutes longer. I am sure there is a way to figure out what needs adjusting, I just haven;t taken the time yet...
ok so from my last brew I just used a calculator and punched in my info, came out to about 85% and same from the brew before that. I use Beersmith but am on the edge if I like it or not. Lots of places to put in information but unsure of what and where and how to use it correctly. What other software do you recommend? I wanted to brew this tomorrow but because I'm a little unsure about the mashing temp and quantity its making me feel nervous.
I use BrewCipher. It's an Excel/Open Office spreadsheet. I may be biased. What worries you about the mash temp (152F)?
I think I just figure from what I just put in Beersmith the temp says 156 not 152, should I be worried about a difference, or should I go with the online recipe. Mainly worried about sparging and temperatures and levels. I only want a 5.25 gal batch if possible. I don't bottle, so I use the .25gal for testing and losses to keg.
It's my understanding that New Glarus used to use corn in this beer but stopped several years ago. Regardless of authenticity, it looks like it should make a beer in the spirit of the commercial beer, and I think I would similarly enjoy it. please let me know, if you make it, how it turns out.
Best to use your own judgement. I just mash in until the mash is what I want it to be. I can afford this with 15g kettle sizes. That recipe will work sure.
