Using Beersmith to adjust Clonebrew recipes

I've started putting my favorite Clonebrew recipes into Beersmith to see how the stats differ between the book and the program. Gravity estimates seem to be about the same, but I find that SRM and IBU differ a lot.

SRM usually comes out really low in beersmith... is the BS version of this accurate if I steep my grains for around half an hour before starting the boil to extract color?

Not sure if I should start recalculating hop additions in BS because I usually do late extract additions when I'm brewing. It looks like when I enter the clonebrew recipe as it is in the book, the IBUs in BS match the recipe specs, but when I tell the program to adjust for late extract addition, the IBUs jump about 10 points.

Anybody tried messing around with this? Should I stick to the recipes in the book or use beersmith to rework the bittering? (I'm too lazy to brew the same thing twice and just alter the hops to see what the effect is... hoping to hear from somebody who has already tried it).

Beersmith is pretty accurate, but if you are making beer that you like, the numbers don't really matter. You can adjust the steeping time, late extract addition, and hop AA% stats to match up with your method, and my experience has been pretty accurate.

I don't know if your book takes late extract addition into account or not, but if it doesn't and you want to keep up with that method, I would adjust the hops to what Beersmith says.

Parker36 said:

Beersmith is pretty accurate, but if you are making beer that you like, the numbers don't really matter. You can adjust the steeping time, late extract addition, and hop AA% stats to match up with your method, and my experience has been pretty accurate.

I don't know if your book takes late extract addition into account or not, but if it doesn't and you want to keep up with that method, I would adjust the hops to what Beersmith says.

Click to expand...

The book I'm getting my clone recipes from doesn't adjust for late extract additions. So I guess that would be +1 for adjusting it with beersmith.

Not sure that I've seen the option for telling beersmith that grains are being steeped. Any idea where that is?

If you have your recipe type as "Extract" up at the top top, it just assumes any grain you put in is steeped. I think there is somewhere to adjust steeping temp/time, too

That book only has a couple of decent recipes that are halfway near what they're trying to clone. I stashed mine on a back shelf to never use again. Then, I won another one as a 'prize' in a competition. It still has the wrapping on it...