I came up with a 2 gallon all-grain Rye IPA as my next experiment using Brewer’s friend’s recipe builder. In the course of evaluating Beersmith 2 desktop, I punched in the same recipe. Everything matched, except OG was 1.076 in Beersmith, 1.073 in Brewer’s friend. Not a big deal, but then I added my Hops bill…Brewer’s friend says 75.1 IBU’s, Beersmith says 98.9.
Who is right?
Maybe I don’t have all 6 million Beersmith parameters set right. I’m liking Brewer’s friend as it is easier with less variables to set, cheaper too.
The math is the math. Each program has different variables set for grain and hop %. I know in BeerSmith, you can adjust values per your specific ingredients.
[quote=“560sdl”]The math is the math. Each program has different variables set for grain and hop %. I know in BeerSmith, you can adjust values per your specific ingredients.
Fan of BeerSmith.[/quote]
Yes, you need to adjust the settings to meet your needs. If you have a new ingredient you’ll have to put the numbers in for it.
Not to mention that different granaries will yield different PPG for same malts. (briess, rahr, etc. )
And different years crops will have slightly different AA% causing a slightly different calculation regardless.
I’ve used brewers friend, actually I used it exclusively when I was a new brewer. I liked it. It was easy to use and probably more accurate than my process.
[quote=“Nighthawk”]Neither could be correct. You would need to have the specifics of each grain matching the program. Which can very from malting batch to batch.
The same goes for the specifics of the hops. And then there are different formulas for hop utilization.
Choose the one that you like the interface.[/quote]
+1
I happen to be a fan of BeerSmith. But, choose the interface that you will be comfortable with and change the values according to your ingredients.
I did notice that Beersmith has some different grain choices as well. My recipe is a mix of three different ones I found, and modified to where I can get rid of some cascade I have sitting around and don’t want to get stale. One of the grains is simply American wheat, but Beersmith only has American White Wheat. Also, end of boil and dry hop additions don’t seem to change IBU’s in either program.
For those that are curious, here is my recipe.
RyePA.
2 gallon batch, app. 3.5 gallon boil.
OG 1.073, IBU 79.47, SRM 14.77
Grains:
3.5# American Pale 2 Row
1.25# American Rye
.75# American Caramel/Crystal 60
.25# American Carapils Dextrine
.25# American Wheat
Hops:
.8oz Cascade 7% - FWH
.25oz Columbus 14% - 60 min.
.25oz Mt. Hood 4.8% - 30 min.
.5oz Mt. Hood 4.8% - 0 min.
.5oz Columbus 14% - Dry Hop 7 Days
2 gallon all grain, so it is basically BIAB, with a kind of batch sparge.
Drop bag in 1.75 gal. of water at 120F, keep going to the low 150F range. Hold it there for an hour, then raise to 169 for mashout. After removing and straining bag, transfer to another pot with 1.75 Gal. of water at 170, swirl it around real good, remove and strain, then add this water to the other water in the wort pot. Boil for 70 minutes with the scheduled additions. I used to sparge this small a recipe in the normal BIAB way, but became concerned about hot side aeration.
Primary in the usual manner, then bottle.(it’s only 2 gallons!)
Looks like you had the Est. Pre Boil field in Beersmith set at the default, 6.5 gallons, that gave me 91 IBU. when I set it to 3.5 it dropped to 72 IBU. Here’s what I got with your recipe, sans the flame out and dry hops, at 75% efficiency:
Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
3 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 58.3 %
1 lbs 4.0 oz Rye Malt (4.7 SRM) Grain 2 20.8 %
12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 3 12.5 %
4.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 4 4.2 %
4.0 oz White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 5 4.2 %
0.80 oz Cascade [7.00 %] - First Wort 60.0 min Hop 6 44.4 IBUs
0.25 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 7 25.2 IBUs
0.25 oz Mt. Hood [4.80 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 8.7 IBUs
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.078
Est Final Gravity: 1.017
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 8.1 %
Bitterness: 72.5 IBUs
That one sounds good to me! I’m guessing the 0 min. boil and dry hop additions are for aroma only? That’s why they don’t affect the IBU figure when you add them in the formula. I do like the hop aroma, but will it spoil it for me if it’s not there? I will try it and see.
In my humble opinion, any calculated value of >90 IBUS is about 90% likely to be false. Anyway, humans can only taste a maximum of 90-100 IBUs – after that, it still just tastes “quite bitter”.
As a general rule, I would tend to trust BeerSmith over most other softwares. However in this case, I seriously doubt a value of 98 IBUs. But you’ll never really know the truth unless you can test the IBUs in a lab.
By the way… fear of hot side aeration is most likely baloney in a homebrew setting. One example: The guys at Basic Brewing ran experiments where they split batches and purposely aerated the crap out of half of the hot wort with a wire whisk or paint stirrer, leaving the other half with minimal hot side aeration. In the end, they couldn’t find any discernible differences in the aerated vs. non-aerated beers. I encourage all to experiment yourselves and see if it makes a difference on your system.
[quote=“dmtaylo2”]
By the way… fear of hot side aeration is most likely baloney in a homebrew setting. One example: The guys at Basic Brewing ran experiments where they split batches and purposely aerated the crap out of half of the hot wort with a wire whisk or paint stirrer, leaving the other half with minimal hot side aeration. In the end, they couldn’t find any discernible differences in the aerated vs. non-aerated beers. I encourage all to experiment yourselves and see if it makes a difference on your system.[/quote]
So that’s another misconception meant to put the fear of god in Newbies? Damn! I keep running into them!
Books and interwebs are still rampant with bad info and myths that just won’t die. If you want to know if anything is true vs. myth, just ask me or Denny or a host of other experienced dudes first. I am almost inclined to say that the MAJORITY of the old rules of thumb that you hear spouted in books and such are baloney. Brewing really is a hell of a lot easier than people make it sound. I mean… well anyone can make great beer on their first outings, even by accident. If you can read a recipe to make soup, you can easily make great beer. Reading and researching a lot helps, and keeping up with the times on Basic Brewing Radio, etc. But through your very own experimentation and experience, that’s how you get from great to excellent. Question everything. Test everything. Try everything. And you will see for yourself how many of the “rules” are truly myths.
FYI - the difference in IBU’s is probably because Brewer’s Friend calculates FWH as a 20-minute addition, while I believe Beersmith calculates it as the full boil length plus a little more. The BeerSmith calculation will probably get you closer to how a lab would measure IBU’s, but the Brewer’s Friend calculation is a lot closer to how I percieve it. I find FWH additions to be a lot smoother than a regular 60 minute addition even though they are in the hot wort longer.
I FWH almost all my beers, and I prefer the Brewer’s Friend calculation for recipe design purposes. Either way, you’re never going to be able to predict a true lab value based on an IBU calculation. The best you can hope for is to know what a certain IBU measurement tastes like using your system and one specific formula. This will get you in the ballpark when you’re formulating a recipe, and can then help make adjustments and dial it in on rebrews.
