base malt and DME

[Jon]

All things being equal how many lbs. of base malt (like Marris Otter) does it take to equal 1 lb. of DME? I know your all-grain brewing system's efficiency comes into play but just a rule of thumb mesurement.

Also, how would you go about measuring your system's efficiency?

thanks, Jon

[grapeadmin]

I figure that on average most homebrewers get about a 1.050 gravity using about 10 lbs of grain. One should expect about 1.042 points of gravity from one pound of dry malt so,

6 lbs dry malt x 42= 252/ 5 (gallons)= 50.40

So, 6 lbs dry malt is equal to about 10 lbs grain-

Thus, I would say about 1.66 lbs of grain is equal to about one lb of dry malt.

To figure efficiency, brew a batch of beer and do the following:

Let's say we were making a stout and below is the recipe and the potential (theoretical maximum) rate of extract from one pound of grain:

8 lbs pale ale malt (35 points of gravity per pound per gallon)
1 lb roast barley (24 psgpppg)
1 lb flaked barley (30 psppppg)
.5 lb black patent (24 psgpppg)

8 x 35 = 280
1 x 24 = 24
1 x 30 = 30
.5 x 24 = 12

280+24+30+12= 346

346 / 5 gallons = 69.2 (1.069 is the theoretical maximum is you were to get 100% efficiency). If your starting gravity after brewing the batch (and netting 5 gallons) was say 1.055, you can take

55/69.2= .79 or about 80%

john

[Mark]

Jon,

I see that you have the theoretical values for several grains listed. Where did you get this information? Is there a list for all of the grains we homebrewers use?

Thanks,

Mark

[grapeadmin]

These numbers were gleaned from the 'Homebrewing Guide' (Dave Miller). Any book that covers all-grain brewing should have them. Also, you can find them in Pro Mash (the software).

john