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Hello from South Florida!

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Hello and happy Wednesday. I am a newbie to the all grain brewing community. Previously used a Mr. Beer kit with extracts with more success than not.

In making this jump I moved off the electric stove top to a Brewer?s Edge 5 gallon Mash & Boil kit. I have added a copper coil chilling system. Considering the Sparge water heating unit simply to keep the entire brewing process into a single area.

I have been reading up on hime brewing A LOT. I have 6 or 7 books now. Many cover the same basic information, but all add something a bit unique or different. Book of the now is ?Designing Great Beers? by Ray Daniels. Very interesting book with some great information.

One thing he keeps mentioning, though, is when designing or creating a grain bill you need to know your Target Gravity. That has me confused. Is there some source available that lists what beers are most likely associated with what target gravity?
 
Daniel's book is predominantly geared towards brewing to a specific style.  The BJCP style guidelines are in BeerSmith and each style has a range of OG and FG associated with it.  Now if you want to brew to a style, or pick a style to base an experimental beer off of, this works well.  There are some beers that I design where I know I want to hit a certain ABV and will base my initial target OG based upon that target.
 
When you select a style in BeerSmith the colored sliders on the design page will define the targeted original gravity range, along with ranges for IBUs, color and alcohol content. As you develop the recipe, the sliders will follow your entries. You can also menu into ingredients/fermentables and scroll through the various grains and adjuncts to see the potential gravity contribution per gallon for each one. Spend some time on the BeerSmith site reading the blog entries and watching videos. You'll find that much of the information in these books is incorporated in this software.
Don't get me wrong, I have a large brewing library that I consult often. It's very important to know the whys and what fors that you don't get from brewing software. Be aware though, much of the information you find in the earlier publications has been shown over the years to be irrelevant in home brewing.
There is definitely a learning curve, but there are also some great folks who frequent this forum that will gladly answer any questions you may have.

Welcome to the hobby and the BeerSmith forums.

 
Oginme said:
Daniel's book is predominantly geared towards brewing to a specific style.  The BJCP style guidelines are in BeerSmith and each style has a range of OG and FG associated with it.  Now if you want to brew to a style, or pick a style to base an experimental beer off of, this works well.  There are some beers that I design where I know I want to hit a certain ABV and will base my initial target OG based upon that target.

Thank you for your reply, Oginme. I appreciate the welcoming words and your advice. Have a great weekend.
 
BOB357 said:
When you select a style in BeerSmith the colored sliders on the design page will define the targeted original gravity range, along with ranges for IBUs, color and alcohol content. As you develop the recipe, the sliders will follow your entries. You can also menu into ingredients/fermentables and scroll through the various grains and adjuncts to see the potential gravity contribution per gallon for each one. Spend some time on the BeerSmith site reading the blog entries and watching videos. You'll find that much of the information in these books is incorporated in this software.
Don't get me wrong, I have a large brewing library that I consult often. It's very important to know the whys and what fors that you don't get from brewing software. Be aware though, much of the information you find in the earlier publications has been shown over the years to be irrelevant in home brewing.
There is definitely a learning curve, but there are also some great folks who frequent this forum that will gladly answer any questions you may have.

Welcome to the hobby and the BeerSmith forums.

Hello BOB357. I really appreciate your response. Thank you so much for the advice. I am going to continue to "blindly" follow the directions from my friends at the brewery who have helped me with my recipes to date. My hope is as time goes on I can start taking what they are giving me and make some changes and know why I am making them and what the end result should be.

Have a great weekend!
 
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