IBUs off in Beersmith? (HRR Clone)

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Llarian

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I'm wondering if I'm maybe missing something obvious. I plugged in the HRR recipe from BYO into Beersmith, as I intend to make it next weekend.

I'm ending up with 45 IBUs from the recipe, contributed by .75oz Columbus for 60 minutes and .43oz Centennial for 30 minutes.

That sounds right, but the BYO recipe says 84 IBU, and I recall this being a pretty hoppy beer.

Anybody brewed this and noticed similar?

-D
 
Perhaps the hops in BYO assume a higher AA% than BeerSmith's default hops database has. Does the article mention it? You can edit the AA% in BeerSmith to match the actual hops you're using, then tailor the amounts to get the IBUs correct.

The default IBU calculation is Tinseth, which is usually regarded as the most accurate for homebrewers. You can check that in the options dialog.
 
Yeah, that was my first hunch, but I corrected the AAs (the recipe is also given in AAUs), it was slightly lower before that.

I set it to use Tinseth in the options a while ago.

Beersmith is giving -10% utilization for leaf hops (which I use), but even using the default pellet, I'm still only getting 50 IBUs.

-D
 
Not that far off. I use a volume of 8G for a 90 minute boil because of the evaporation I tend to see, but that shouldn't make a huge difference.

I checked a couple other recipes, including the Racer 5 IPA by the same brewery, and the IBUs checked out correctly, so it doesn't seem to be a beersmith issue.

Anybody who's brewed the Hop Rod Rye clone wanna tell me about it? =)

-D
 
Phooey, forum won't let me change the actual title that shows up in the forums...

Nobody has brewed the Hop Rod Rye from BYO? I know I saw it on somebody's sig line at some point...

(Unfortunatly, I can't search for any of the words in "hop rod rye" here because they're too short)

-Dylan
 
There are different formulae for calculating IBUs. Beersmith uses Tinseth which is what I use. Everyone's brewing system is different and theres no way of knowing which calculation is closest to your system apart from experience (short of sending it to a lab), unfortunately. Trial and error - if 40 ibu's seems too bitter or too sweet on your system for a given gravity, adjust.
 
Yeah, that part works fine. Really, the issue isn't BeerSmith (I should just repost this I suppose with a more accurate title since I can't change it)

The real question is that the recipe in BYO is suspect, the Hop Rod Rye is supposed to be a pretty hoppy beer and my tastes of it bear that out, but the hops in the recipe calculate out much lower than I'd think they should for a hoppy beer of that gravity.

Also, the BYO recipe for Racer 5 (and IPA from the same brewery in the same issue) is spot on in BeerSmith.

-D
 
In case anybody else is interested, here's what I got back from BYO. Makes perfect sense when I think about it.

-D

Glad you liked the clone issue.

Hop Rod Rye gets most of it's IBUs in the whirlpool. If you look at the directions, there is a large hop addition at 0 minutes left in the boil, followed
by 15 minutes of whirlpool (soaking in hot wort). You'll get a lot more than the 0 IBUs Tinseth calculates for a 0 minute addition followed by a 15-minute
hot steep. How much exactly depends on a variety of things.

For calculation purposes, at a maximum, the 15-minute whirlpool would move all hop additions back 15 minutes in the boil. You'd get better hop utilization
in the whirlpool with less heat loss and more movement (as in a commercial breweries whirlpool tank, where the wort is actually circling around) and worse
utilization with more heat loss and less motion (as most homebrewers will achieve).


Chris Colby
Editor
Brew Your Own magazine
Click to expand...
 

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