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Working with PPG and Specific Gravity

How much malt is really in a 1.040 beer? We need to understand how to use the PPG values associated with your malt, regardless of its source as grain, DME or LME. PPG stands for Points per Pound per Gallon. PPG relates the amount of gravity points contributed by one pound in one gallon of water. PPG bridges the gap between a “dry” ingredient (DME or grain) and the anticipated specific gravity of that ingredient once its in solution. Remembering that specific gravity as a number refers to the density of a liquid.

The best way to illustrate and conceptualize this in your mind is to think about a one-pound bag of DME. DME has a PPG of 44, or 44PPG. If you dissolved a one-pound bag of DME in on gallon of water it the resulting gravity would be 1.044 SG (specific gravity). Subsequently, an easier way to use this number is to ignore the gallon part of the equation. Before you add the water to your 1 pound of DME, that dry bag has 44 points in it (or 44 points per pound). Using easy math you can see that if you put that 44-point bag (one pound) in 2 gallons the 44 points would be diluted to a gravity reading of 1.022SG. Likewise, you can put that same 44 points into half a gallon and the resulting gravity would be 1.088SG (44/0.5 is 88). But the total points are always the same regardless of gravity readings. (22*2=44, 44*1=44 and 88*0.5=44)

How do we translate PPG numbers into 5-gallon batches? It may be easier if we think of recipe formulation in reverse. Let’s say you want to make a 5-gallon batch of 1.044 OG. A specific gravity of 1.044 can be taken to mean 44 points per gallon. So in a 5 gallon batch there is actually 5*44=220 total points. So to make that beer you need to get 220 total points of malt in there. If you were to make it entirely using DME, which is 44PPG, then you would need 5 pounds. 220 total points divided by 44 points per pound (ignore the gallon part of PPG because you already accounted for the gallons by calculating total points). 5 pounds makes sense because if 1 pound of DME in one gallon makes a 1.044 gravity wort, then it would take 5 pounds in 5 gallons to make the same strength beer.

Here is a tougher example:
You want to make a 6 gallon batch of 1.064 beer using LME. LME has a 37PPG rating.

The principle is the same for LME; just think of it as if it were a dry ingredient. You can do this because its PPG is lower because the water in the LME has already been accounted for, hence lowering the malts PPG from 44 to 37.

So for 6 gallons of 1.064 that would be 6*64 or 384 points needed. LME provides 37 points per pound, so 384/37 is 10.3 pounds of LME.

Being able to calculate anticipated gravity from the ingredients we use is critical to being able to formulate your own recipes, or more importantly to make changes in recipes you have. If you have a 1.040 beer and you think it would be better as 1.050 you’ll be able to calculate how much more DME to add to get there.

(BTW, for 5 gallons you would need 1.1 pound of DME to boost the gravity to 1.050)

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5 Comments

  1. Matt

    So, if you added 1lb of LME to 1 gallon of water the resulting solution would have a gravity of 1.037 but the resulting volume would be over 1 gallon because of the volume of LME, correct? or are you dissolving the LME in an amount of water so that the final solution volume is exactly 1 gallon?

  2. In the strictest sense, you should be dissolving the extract in less than one gallon, then adding water after that to get to one gallon. That is for the purest analytical way to do it, but I don’t know many who do it like that and worry about that level of accuracy.
    Something to keep in mind, LME certainly has more volume to it than DME. I almost entirely work with DME much of the time when I did extracts. The error in SG due to volume and density is less effected by DME additions. Hope that helps!

  3. Joey

    Hi, i got a question, why do we have to match the og of the beer (to know the actual alcohol that is going to have) what happends if i use only honey?, i mean , in this case was 1.5 lb of honey with water, but without diluted in the water, it will have the same flavor in the finished beer?

  4. I don’t understand what you mean by “match the OG of the beer”. If I assume you mean precisely hitting an OG target then no you don’t have to be perfect. And if you substitute honey for some of the malt or extract it will have an effect on the flavor depending on percent. If you only use a small amount, 10% or less say, then the beer will appear drier and less malty (because you used less malt). If you use more, 40% or more say, then the beer will be begin to take on more honey notes and might appear more mead like at very high percentatges. Not necessarily a bad thing.
    Does that help? Let us know.

  5. Mike@invictusbrewing

    How do we determine the LPG for,say mulberries?

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