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bushmanj

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does anyone know of a good software that is avalible for free that is comparable to promash or beersmith or something? i am a college student and the last thing that is in my brewing budget is software. ive have been partial mashing and plan to start doing small all grain batches and would like the help of some software to guide me in the right direction. thank you
 
I have an Iphone, all I use is Brewpal $.99 ... It's got the basics and I like to keep brewing to an art/hobby not a science :)
 
This is what many of us got started with before buying software...it's beer calculus online software.

http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe

Revvy-
I've been using this too, being relatively new to the hobby. My biggest question is that the calculated IBUs seem to be way off of what most recipes state. For instance, I put in a Jamil Barleywine recipe and the 2 oz of magnum hops in the boil give me 22.4 IBU from this calculator, where his recipe anticipates 96. That's a huge discrepancy. I've done this experiment a few times and always seem to get much lower IBU values with beercalculus. I'm afraid that I may have some much more bitter beer than anticipated when my next batch comes off. Am I missing something, or is beer calc way off on its IBU calcs?
 
Revvy-
I've been using this too, being relatively new to the hobby. My biggest question is that the calculated IBUs seem to be way off of what most recipes state. For instance, I put in a Jamil Barleywine recipe and the 2 oz of magnum hops in the boil give me 22.4 IBU from this calculator, where his recipe anticipates 96. That's a huge discrepancy. I've done this experiment a few times and always seem to get much lower IBU values with beercalculus. I'm afraid that I may have some much more bitter beer than anticipated when my next batch comes off. Am I missing something, or is beer calc way off on its IBU calcs?

There's plenty of threads on here discussing it, and even on the Brew Calc FAQ. It all depends on WHAT ibu formula you choose to use in Beer calc and what formulas the other software are using.

From Hopville Blog;
Previously, the default IBU calculation for Beer Calculus was based on an average of a few popular formulas. It did four calculations (Garetz, Rager, Tinseth, and the legacy Hopville calc) and averaged them together. I chose to blend a few conflicting numbers together instead of committing to a single one by default. That neutral position tended to cause some confusion among both types of brewers: those who cared which formula was in use, but didn’t know you could change it, and those who didn’t care at all. Plus, the only indication that a formula selection was being made was a subtle message “avg” near the IBU result – pretty vague about what was happening behind the scenes. Recipes now default to the Tinseth formula. Hopefully this will satisfy those who prefer this formula, and also clarify the default calculation to folks who don’t really care.

His blog talks about all sorts of things there, plus he is really accessable, I used to email him all the time to add ingredients for me. http://hopville.wordpress.com/
 
Thanks, that helps a lot. I didn't even see there was an option to change the calc.

You really want a mindfuq? Then listen to John Palmer on an old basic brewing, and you'll find out that it really doesn't matter, and everything Palmer believed and wrote about IBU's in HTB, is wrong.:D

Basic Brewing Thursday, March 20, 2008 4:30 PM
John Palmer, author of How to Brew, shares information from a conference that challenged his concept of what defines an International Bitterness Unit (IBU). Click to listen, MP-3
 
Great. I'm reading through Papazian's books right now and listening through the Brew Strong archives on my commute, but I haven't spent much time on fretting over IBU calcs. I've just taken recipes for similar styles and based my own on others that I like. As far as the IBU calcs, I have trusted the average posted by this software.

How do these different calculation methods impact BJCP style match?

Sorry, I'm off topic now. Time to seek out a hops thread...
 
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