I would have agreed with you in the past Thirsty but OG's on brewing software with the same inputs vary wildly - it's actually quite ridiculous....
Anyway, we'll see if this thread can at least identify what most brewers are thinking and perhaps then, we can go from there to a better paradigm.
If you want to know when I have been posting after a few beers, look for big words like, "paradigm," and a little exageration B).
First the exaggeration....
Common brewing software / spreadsheets only seem to range over about three points on OG. Bitterness levels however do vary wildly. Here's the results of one brew I converted recently...
ProMash = 41 IBU's
BeerSmith = 35 IBUs
Beer Alchemy = 43 IBUs
The Calculator from BIABrewer.info = 31 IBUs (Formula based on John Palmer)
Secondly, thanks for the well-written posts above. Every now and then I bring up this topic in some form or other to see if anything has changed. Thanks for the link to Phillip's thread, Nige. It was a shame to see that it didn't gain more momentum
. He also points out the haphazard way in which recipes are communicated but still has the same problem...
Unless brewers actually provide a lot of detail such as seen
here then you do have to fiddle a lot and sometimes make some big guesses. This is a bit much to ask of new brewers who are looking for certainty. (More experienced brewers know how to fiddle and guess and have developed a healthy disregard for figures. Most of them are at a stage where they
know they will get a great beer regardless.)
Nice to hear your admission Silo Ted. Don't worry, you aren't Robinson Crusoe mate
. Most new brewers would have taken far longer to find their, "problem," and why wouldn't they? The poll results here and from the ones I have done in prior years show that there is a major problem in home brewing and software terminology. Experienced brewers, if they even worry, know how to get around this. Experienced brewers interested in this subject will vehemently disagree with each other on what batch size means. Let's not even mention, "brewhouse," efficiency!
The ideal would to be have a standardised method of reporting a recipe but we all know this will never happen
. My hope is that threads like this will save the occasional poor bugger from thinking, "I don't understand this, I must be a complete idiot! In this thread, 2+2 equalled 3 and in this one it equals 5. What is everyone else seeing that I am not?"
Nothing!
wink (no emoticons left)
Pat
P.S. For any new brewers reading this who are getting depressed, don't sweat the figures. Assuming you have the brewing basics under control and a good thermometer, it is pretty hard to make a crap all-grain beer even if you stuff the recipe measurements up by twenty or more percent.