BeerBorg

when trying to come up with an all grain recipe of your own, is there a guide or generally accepted practice as to how much base malt like 2 row to use in proportion to how much other malts?

This chart tells you how much of the grist each should be in a batch.

As does this one.

thanks muchly... those charts will come in very handy.

-z-

A couple years ago I printed out that second chart and refer to it constantly when working on a recipe. I like how it indicates what characteristics certain grains have.

I had not seen that first chart, and it's a good Square One for determining malt ratios. That being said, sometimes you have to go outside the box. Right now, I'm working on a recipe for a rye IPA, so I want an aggressive rye presence. I'm still tweaking the recipe, but right now, I've got the rye at 27% of my grain bill, which is counter to what that chart recommends, but I don't think it's a disaster. You do what you gotta do, and sometimes you have to push the envelope.

I got a recipe that has 34% rye. It worked out great.

I used 60% rye in the Roggenbier. And it was awesome.

So yeah use those as a reference, and for some thing it does matter more, IE if you use too much roasted barley you'd end up charcoal beer... which doesn't sound good to me. But from a base malt perspective, IE anything that has the ability to convert, I think you can use as much as you want and end up with good beer. I've done 100% Munich beer for example as well.