I prefer to boil all 5 gallons (I actually start with 5.75 gallons for boil off) when doing a kit. This causes my beer to be a little over hopped. I decided to try to do something about this. I entered the recipe from the kit I was going to make into BeerSmith. When I switched the water boil amount from 2.5g to 5.75 the projected IBU’s went off the chart. To get the IBU’s close to the same I have to cut the hops in half. Is BeerSmith wrong on this? How much should I be using? Should I just use all the hop amounts on the recipes and ignore the fact that I am using more water?
Thanks,
Kevin
Nope Beersmith is correct. With full boils you get better hop utilization. Partial boils are extremely concentrated with sugars that limit hop utilization.
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No think they are correct. Full boil. Beter use of the hops.
Beersmith is pretty much spot on in all calculations.
Only thing I would suggest to check in regards to this calculation is that the AA% of the hops listed in BS2 is the same as the hops you’re using. Hops AA% will vary from crop to crop, year to year. If the hops you have on hand have a higher or lower AA% than listed in BS2 you can adjust that in the settings for more precise IBU calculations.
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