Converting recipes to all grain

[Totes.McGoats]

I have a great blonde ale recipe I got from a friend but it's for DME. I brew all grain and don't know how to convert it. The recipe calls for Pilsen DME and Wheat DME. Is the conversion the same for every malt type or does is change with each malt?

[BDawg]

Welcome-

Here's a post I made here regarding conversions between LME/DME/AG.

Basically, you figure out how many gravity points you want by taking the last two digits of the OG and multiplying that by the number of gallons.
That number is your target:

For example : 1.065 x 5 gallons = 65 x 5 = 325 gravity points

Most wheat DME is either 50/50 or 60/40 wheat to pilsner malt.
let's keep this easy and say it's 50/50.

So, if your recipe needs 325 gravity points, and you were using DME, then that would be 325/44 or 7.39 lbs of wheat DME.

Going the other way, you'll need to get 325 / 2 points out of pilsner malt, and 325/2 points out of wheat (at 50/50).

You need to get 162.5 points from each malt.
Most malts get 36 pppg at 100% yield. You only get about 75% yield (give or take), so weight = 162.5 / (.75 x 36) = 6.018 lbs of each malt.

Substitute your gravity and efficiency with the above numbers, and you have it.

Hope this helps.

most Liquid malt extract yields 36 gravity points per lb in 1 gallon. (ie, a lb of extract dissolved in 1 gallon of water will give you a 1.036 wort). Use 44 here if the recipe calls for Dry Malt Extract.

36 times the number of lbs in your recipe gives the number of points you need.
so, if your recipe calls for 5 lbs, you use 5x36 = 180 points.

In a standard mash, you use your normal extraction efficiency * the max extraction (which for most base malts is around 36, but you need to actually look at the specs on the bag of grain to be totally accurate.

Here, 36 pppg again is a reasonable approximation for max extraction.
However, when mashing you normally get around 70-80% efficiency. When doing a partial mash, the efficiency is even less, 50% is a safe number to use. Multiply that by your efficiency to see how many points you'll extract per lb: in this case .5 x 36 = 18. For 70% efficiency, it's .7x36 = 25.

so, take the points you need: 180
divide by the points per lb you';ll get: 18
so 5 lbs of LME is equivalent to:
180/18 = 10 lbs of grain in a mini mash
or 180 / 25 = 7.2 lbs in a normal mash where your efficiency is 70%.

[Totes.McGoats]

Awesome! Thank you so much I appreciate the help!