BeerBorg

I had posted about using The Nocturnal Grain Blend in my Daughter's B-day beer. I asked Northern Brewer how to enter it in BeerSmith. Thought I would share see below

"The Nocturnal blend has different grains in it.

You can approximate it with these proportions
50% Chocolate
25% Dark Crystal
12.5% Carafa III
12.5% Extra Dark Crystal

Depending on how much you need, you should be able to configure each malt individually in Beer Smith to approximate the blend using those proportions."

so for a pound 8 oz Chocolate + 4 oz Dark Crystal + 2 oz Carafa III + 2 oz Extra Dark Crystal = 16 oz Nocturnal Grain Blend

That sounds pretty spot on. What kind of beer are you making for your daughter's b-day? First guess would be a stout, but maybe a black IPA?

a chocolate stout.

Mmmmm yummy

Came up with this for entering the blend into Beersmith. Now you just need to add a single grain instead of 4.

chocolate 350 srm 50% = 175
Dark Crystal 80 srm 25% = 20
Extra Dark Crystal 158 srm 12.5% = 19.75
Carafa III 525 srm 12.5% = 65.625

(175 + 20 + 19.75 + 16.625) = 280.375

braukasper wrote:Came up with this for entering the blend into Beersmith. Now you just need to add a single grain instead of 4.

chocolate 350 srm 50% = 175
Dark Crystal 80 srm 25% = 20
Extra Dark Crystal 158 srm 12.5% = 19.75
Carafa III 525 srm 12.5% = 65.625

(175 + 20 + 19.75 + 16.625) = 280.375

Uh, I think it should be 65.625 not 16.625. as written the answer to the line problem is 231.375. Now color me stupid but what the devil are the numbers your adding up?

Looks like he's putting the color to percentages, but 350L is 350L no mater what percentage is used.

Dawg LB Steve wrote:Looks like he's putting the color to percentages, but 350L is 350L no mater what percentage is used.

he's adding up the grain blend, but I don't get where the numbers (i.e. 350 SRM 50% = 175). what's the 175, grams?

He's trying to calculate the SRM of the nocturnal blend grain by taking a weighted average of the components. Chocolate is 350, but only comprises 50% of the blend, so it gets 175. Add them all up and you get 280.375, which apparently you can then input into the software as one grain with that SRM instead of putting in the four different grains with different amounts.

RickBeer wrote:He's trying to calculate the SRM of the nocturnal blend grain by taking a weighted average of the components. Chocolate is 350, but only comprises 50% of the blend, so it gets 175. Add them all up and you get 280.375, which apparently you can then input into the software as one grain with that SRM instead of putting in the four different grains with different amounts.

Recalculated SRM, ok thanks Rick

That is it exactly. When working on multiple versions of a recipe I find it easier this way. One entry instead of 4 or 5. I know that I have the same percentages. thanks for catching my typing mistake. The recipe I am working on comes up the same if I use the grain blend or each grain separately. The percentages came from Northern Brewer who sells this particular grain blend. I am pretty sure you can enter custom hop blends with this method too. however with the variances in AA% it would probably be best to those manually