Brewmate question

[supertonio]

Had this one in the software section but not getting much response....

I have been using brewmate for my beers when using other peoples recipes and when adding hop additions I have been pretty spot on in hitting the same IBUs as the recipe creator.

However, yesterday I have tried to formulate my own recipe and when got to adding any hop additions from 30 mins onwards I wasn't sure when to add them as boil or aroma.

The reason I am asking is that if you add them as boil they add IBU and if you add as aroma they add zero IBU (even if you add an addition at 60mins and update as boil it will still say zero IBU).Should I only be choosing aroma 5mins onwards?

So fellow brewmaters please give me a bit advice about when you use boil/aroma and the overall effect on your recipes.

Thanks

 

[yum beer]

When you change a hop setting you need to move the cursor to another field to execute the change.
eg. If you click a change from aroma to boil nothing happens in the IBU field, but when you move the cursor, by hittting TAB or clicking in another box the IBU field will change.
For a while I thought it was a glitch that clicking didn't change ther setting, you need to put the program into the next step to force the calculation to be redone.

 

[kahlerisms]

I have this chart stuck to one of my fermenting fridges. You need to allow for whirlpool and chilling but it's good enough

 

[whitegoose]

I've used BrewMate for a long time and I've never used the "Aroma" setting... I just use Boil and Dry Hop. Even your 5 minute aroma additions are still just being boiled for 5 minutes! If you're boiling them, use Boil (and I use Boil of 0 minutes for flamout/whirlpool additions). I think the Aroma setting is redundant - my bet it was added to the software to represent 0 minute additions, but I it's not neccessary.

 

[supertonio]

Thanks for the replies gentlemen.

Yum beer - I realised what you're talking about cause when I started using brewmate i wondered why it never updated as soon as you put a value in.

Whitegoose - You've answered my question as I suspected...anything added to the boil even at 5 mins will add some amount of bitterness so I'm just going to use boil and adjust hop additions elsewhere to lower/increase ibu. Do you find brewmate has been quite accurate when formulating your own recipes?

I've used BrewMate for a long time and I've never used the "Aroma" setting... I just use Boil and Dry Hop. Even your 5 minute aroma additions are still just being boiled for 5 minutes! If you're boiling them, use Boil (and I use Boil of 0 minutes for flamout/whirlpool additions). I think the Aroma setting is redundant - my bet it was added to the software to represent 0 minute additions, but I it's not neccessary.

 

[whitegoose]

Whitegoose - You've answered my question as I suspected...anything added to the boil even at 5 mins will add some amount of bitterness so I'm just going to use boil and adjust hop additions elsewhere to lower/increase ibu. Do you find brewmate has been quite accurate when formulating your own recipes?

I think BrewMate is fantastic!! In regards to whether it's "accurate", how would you know?? The only way to know whether my beer is 32 IBU as per the recipe would be to use one of those mass spectrometers, otherwise it's just perception and comparison. But I can say that I get consistant beers using BrewMate. I think BrewMate uses pretty well-accepted calculations for things like IBU and extraction, it's just a simple interface for getting all the data together. In the settings section I believe you can even change which IBU calculation formula you want to use - eg. Rager, Tinseth, or an average of both.

 

[spog]

For a bit more info on hop additions though not directly answering your Brewmate question have a listen to Beersmith podcast 67.
Cheers...spog...