Beersmith Hop Utilisation

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buttersd70

Beerbelly's bitch :)
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A glib remark by myself in another thread about not being happy with the hop utilisation in Beersmith got a curious reaction as to why? Personally, I've always felt that the IBU given in Beersmith, using the Tinseth calculation, is under what it should be.several people on the forums have noted at various times that they feel their beer is more bitter than what Beersmith is telling them. (Irrespective of any possibly perceived difference in utilisation between chill vs. no chill) Given that I brew English Milds, which due to the low gravity and the low hopping rates have a finer tolerance to any error on the IBU, it got me curious.so I took one of my recipes, and loaded it into Promash (trial version), keeping all the details exactly the same.what I found was that Promash gave me a higher IBU. (20.1 compared to 18.1. Now 2 IBU doesn't sound a lot, but taken in context of the low OG of 1035, and the low IBU to begin with, it's actually just over 10% difference, and that is reasonably significant. There's a fair difference between a 0.517 bugu beer and a 0.574 bugu beer)

So, curiosity got me and I decided to have a play, making direct comparison to Beersmith, and Glenn Tinseths calculator on his web page. Unfortunately, his metric one is on the blink, so I switched Beersmith over to US measures, and started punching in random recipes, varying the batch sizes, alphas, gravities and boil times, and comparing the results. I make the assumption that Tinseths calculator is based on whole hops, so all the testing I did had whole hops selected in Beersmith. I varied the batch sizes between (the gallon equivalent of) 20-25L, set all losses to 0 apart from evaporation, which was set to 9%, set the boil size as calculated from the boil loss, and took the boil gravities from the BG estimation in the efficiency calculator.

I did high gravity, medium gravity, low gravity, 60 min addition, 40min, 15 min and 2 min, varying the alphas between 5% and 10% throughout. What I found was that Beersmith consistently came in with lower IBU across the board, for each addition. Under the equipment details there is a 'large batch utilisation factor', which, by default, is set to 100% ...I found that by changing that to 111%, all of a sudden all the numbers added up, to within less than an IBU with Tinseths calculator (which rounds to the nearest whole number anyway).

Going back to the recipe that I compared between Beersmith and Promash, which used a combination of pellets and flowers, and changing this overall utilisation to 111%.....all of a sudden, the numbers matched. The 60 minute addition was off by 0.1 IBU, the 15 minute addition by the same amount, but in the opposite direction, and the total IBU was spot on to the decimal place between the two.

So from now on, I'll be keeping the overall utilisation at 111%.....
 
Butters, I don`t think there would be any arguement you are the most knowledgeable person on this forum, be it k&k, extract or ag.
Your help, advice and willingness is a standout.
Please keep up the good work.
cheers mate

stagga.
 
intersting butters. i knew that if you have your losses set (mash tun + loss to trub) beersmith dosnt take this into account but your findings are different again.

always wonderd if anybody had actually e-mailed or told anyone at beersmith about this?
 
Butters, I don`t think there would be any arguement you are the most knowledgeable person on this forum, be it k&k, extract or ag.
Your help, advice and willingness is a standout.
Please keep up the good work.
cheers mate

stagga.
I think we all agree with Stagga, but really dude, posting full page results of your investigations at 1:41 AM, Butters, you need to go get some sleep ;)

Cheers
 
Lots of work and input from Butters but utilization will be different given different systems and procedures (isomerisation), guess if your after a starting reference it's important, but I think most brewers keep records re their results and vary recipes to suit.
 
"I make the assumption that Tinseths calculator is based on whole hops"

But if Tinseth assumes pellets, that would explain why it comes out higher than Beersmith???
 
A glib remark by myself in another thread about not being happy with the hop utilisation in Beersmith got a curious reaction as to why? Personally, I've always felt that the IBU given in Beersmith, using the Tinseth calculation, is under what it should be.several people on the forums have noted at various times that they feel their beer is more bitter than what Beersmith is telling them. (Irrespective of any possibly perceived difference in utilisation between chill vs. no chill) Given that I brew English Milds, which due to the low gravity and the low hopping rates have a finer tolerance to any error on the IBU, it got me curious.so I took one of my recipes, and loaded it into Promash (trial version), keeping all the details exactly the same.what I found was that Promash gave me a higher IBU. (20.1 compared to 18.1. Now 2 IBU doesn't sound a lot, but taken in context of the low OG of 1035, and the low IBU to begin with, it's actually just over 10% difference, and that is reasonably significant. There's a fair difference between a 0.517 bugu beer and a 0.574 bugu beer)

So, curiosity got me and I decided to have a play, making direct comparison to Beersmith, and Glenn Tinseths calculator on his web page. Unfortunately, his metric one is on the blink, so I switched Beersmith over to US measures, and started punching in random recipes, varying the batch sizes, alphas, gravities and boil times, and comparing the results. I make the assumption that Tinseths calculator is based on whole hops, so all the testing I did had whole hops selected in Beersmith. I varied the batch sizes between (the gallon equivalent of) 20-25L, set all losses to 0 apart from evaporation, which was set to 9%, set the boil size as calculated from the boil loss, and took the boil gravities from the BG estimation in the efficiency calculator.

I did high gravity, medium gravity, low gravity, 60 min addition, 40min, 15 min and 2 min, varying the alphas between 5% and 10% throughout. What I found was that Beersmith consistently came in with lower IBU across the board, for each addition. Under the equipment details there is a 'large batch utilisation factor', which, by default, is set to 100% ...I found that by changing that to 111%, all of a sudden all the numbers added up, to within less than an IBU with Tinseths calculator (which rounds to the nearest whole number anyway).

Going back to the recipe that I compared between Beersmith and Promash, which used a combination of pellets and flowers, and changing this overall utilisation to 111%.....all of a sudden, the numbers matched. The 60 minute addition was off by 0.1 IBU, the 15 minute addition by the same amount, but in the opposite direction, and the total IBU was spot on to the decimal place between the two.

So from now on, I'll be keeping the overall utilisation at 111%.....

Can you do the same thing for Rager's hop adjustments please butters? :p

C&B
TDA
 
intersting butters. i knew that if you have your losses set (mash tun + loss to trub) beersmith dosnt take this into account but your findings are different again.

always wonderd if anybody had actually e-mailed or told anyone at beersmith about this?
Yeah, the loss to tun and trub on this one has bee set to 0 as a result of this...as for the emails, yeah, beersmith knows, there are a few questions in relation to this very matter in their faq/forum, but they basically brush it off with 'everyones system is different, our mileage will vary', and don't make any direct answer to why the 'default' settings don't match the defaults of the formulae tinseth uses.

Lots of work and input from Butters but utilization will be different given different systems and procedures (isomerisation), guess if your after a starting reference it's important, but I think most brewers keep records re their results and vary recipes to suit.

Absolutely agree, screwy. I've always kept records and varied my recipes to suit, exactly as you say (by deliberately aiming for slightly lower IBU than what my head tells me is required), and have never bothered with 'correcting' the data specifically....This was done as a test of the baseline and defaults in the programme, nothing more. It was promped by a question from a brewer who is new to the programme, and is only just starting to do extracts, and is relying on (many of ) the default settings as a starting point to be able to guide him into establishing his own correct settings.

"I make the assumption that Tinseths calculator is based on whole hops"

But if Tinseth assumes pellets, that would explain why it comes out higher than Beersmith???
No, the numbers still don't match....I was fairly confident that tinseths calculations are based on whole hops, but after I posted I checked, and this is in fact the case. Whilst Tinseth doesn't say it specifically himself, Norm Pyle states in his Hop FAQ
Glenn Tinseth's method doesn't involve as many factors, but is still a bit more complex than the original Rager method.Tinseth notes that his table is optimized for fresh whole cones loose in the boil, although easily adjustable for other forms of hops.
As this is in an article that appears on Tinseths page, and Tinseth himself is credited in the article as having reviewed the revision, I take it as read.


I wasn't in any way trying to come up with a magical, mystical number that will cure all hopping woes...as Tinseth says, YMMV....but I think that as far as a default baseline, it's closer to what beersmith provides, and brings it more into line with promash's numbers, for more (possibly) consistant reproduction of recipes created in one programme, and then put into the other. Your Mileage May still Vary...but possibly not by quite as much.
 
I've cut and pasted the info, will be an excellent guide when I get my software week after next. I had always felt myself to be a hophead rather than a malt maven but since chucking in the hops with abandon in order to flavour-up my kits and partials I have made some brews so hoppy they make me go cross eyed. :blink:

On doing a reality check with beers such as Budvar and Bavarian Lagers, and even Poms such as Boddingtons it's surprising just how non-bitter some beers are.

That's the main reason I'm going AG and looking for malt aroma and smoothness plus nice rounded hop aroma, rather than have the enamel stripped from my teeth, so accurate IBU calcs will be invaluable for me, especially as I'll be getting Beersmith


Cheers
 
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