BeerSmith Doesn't Match Book's Recipe

Hey guys, I love using BeerSmith, but I'm a novice with it.

I have input the Scottish Heavy 70/- from Brewing Classic Styles (pg 127).

I set the brew size to 6g. Chose the 15 Gallon pot with a 10gallon cooler (same sizes to my equipment). I have set my Total Efficiency to 70%.


The numbers are pretty darn close, am I being overly demanding on matching up perfectly? I guess I figured that Jamil is getting these calculations from his software, so it seems reasonable that I should be able to get mine to generate the same numbers given the same inputs.

Which should I go by on brew day? Is there anything else I can do to tweak the software in?

Thanks!

It is possible the malt you selected in Beersmith is not the same one used in BCS. Maybe a different source for the same malt, even.

For the IBUs, did you set the AA% for each hops addition you put in the recipe? Is the preboil volume the same on your system? I can see the OG is different, which will make a difference, although a lower OG would usually have the higher IBUs.


The FG is just a guess by the software. I look at it, but mainly ignore it and I use my own brewing intuition to figure out what I think the FG is likely to be.

weirdboy said:

It is possible the malt you selected in Beersmith is not the same one used in BCS. Maybe a different source for the same malt, even.

For the IBUs, did you set the AA% for each hops addition you put in the recipe? Is the preboil volume the same on your system? I can see the OG is different, which will make a difference, although a lower OG would usually have the higher IBUs.


The FG is just a guess by the software. I look at it, but mainly ignore it and I use my own brewing intuition to figure out what I think the FG is likely to be.

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Maybe I just don't know enough about the evaporation rate/headspace/ all the fun stuff on my equipment as I'm just using the standard 15GSS/10g igloo preset that game with BeerSmith. I guess at some point I'll need to go through all that

Thinking more about it - that seems a likely culprit.

Well there is definitely something wrong with the IBUs in my opinion. I mean, it's only off by 2.5, which nobody can actually taste the difference, but it is still in the "wrong direction" so to speak. Generally speaking, the IBUs in Beersmith should be higher if the OG is lower. I would double-check the AA% of all the additions in the recipe and compare them to what BCS says.

Yeah - I dialed up the Fuggles AA to 5% just like the recipe calls for. So I'm just not sure - I'm sure hops efficiency is set at 100% by default, right?!

weirdboy said:

Well there is definitely something wrong with the IBUs in my opinion. I mean, it's only off by 2.5, which nobody can actually taste the difference, but it is still in the "wrong direction" so to speak. Generally speaking, the IBUs in Beersmith should be higher if the OG is lower. I would double-check the AA% of all the additions in the recipe and compare them to what BCS says.

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Yeah, but Beersmith defaults to Tinseth, while Jamil uses Rager I believe.

Also, Beersmith calculates IBUs from the boil size, not the batch size. Make sure your boil volume is the same as Jamil's- I believe 7 gallons is the size in all of the BCS recipes.

Yooper said:

Yeah, but Beersmith defaults to Tinseth, while Jamil uses Rager I believe.

Also, Beersmith calculates IBUs from the boil size, not the batch size. Make sure your boil volume is the same as Jamil's- I believe 7 gallons is the size in all of the BCS recipes.

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Oh Interesting! Ok - so switching to Rager it bumped it up to 13.2.

I have it set to calculate the boil size. It figures 9.54gal for this brew. Jamil figures 8.6g. However even if I uncheck the calculate brew volume box and set it to Jamil's number - it gives me the same IBU for some reason. I've attached a SS of my screen.



Thanks for all the input. Learned a lot about BeerSmith already.

you're going to think I'm crazy, but I just opened my book to page 127.

MY book says:

OG 1.038
FG 1.013
IBU 15
color 12

So, my book says color 12. It's only your OG that is off (and negligible- you may have different numbers on the malt analysis) whiel the IBUs indeed are off by 1.5 IBUs.

My book agrees! But BeerSmith gives me 10.5 color!

I'm starting to think I'm probably just being crazy picky here, I really just wanted to know if I was doing something wrong! But maybe the numbers just will never be just the same.

json2001 said:

My book agrees! But BeerSmith gives me 10.5 color!

I'm starting to think I'm probably just being crazy picky here, I really just wanted to know if I was doing something wrong! But maybe the numbers just will never be just the same.

Click to expand...

Well, one of the things Jamil told me was to "always get the malt analysis sheet for every sack of malt you buy" as they do vary. Beersmith is probably using an average of what is often found, and Jamil may be using his own malt analysis or his own software program. I think this is definitely more than "close enough".

Awesome! Thanks yooper. Glad to know I'm in that ballpark! Switching to Rager was a great change.

I'm not to the point where I'm buying "sacks of malt" just yet. I'm doing all grain, but batch by batch right now!

I find beersmith is generally close but doesn't always match recipes or other programs. For a while there was a bug in mine that dropped the IBUs when I added yeast. The last update seems to have rectified the problem.