"lint" for beer recipe evaluation...

[Hoochin'Fool]

I've come to conclusion that this hobby has quite a few recovering software nerds, so hoping someone will know what I'm looking for! For those that aren't recovering software nerds, lint was a program that would check your source code for errors, bugs, and undefined behaviors . See lint on wikipedia

So anyways, I'm wondering if there's anything similar for beer recipes, something that looks that the style of beer being attempted and the percentages of each ingredient, and can then list "warnings" about it. Like, "that's going to be super roasty using that much roasted barley and dark chocolate, consider reducing amount or doing a cold steep". Or "that is an aggressive amount of IBUs per OG"

Assuming there isn't already any such software (I couldn't find any), is there a list of general rule-of-thumb usages anywhere?

 

[Sammy86]

I've come to conclusion that this hobby has quite a few recovering software nerds, so hoping someone will know what I'm looking for! For those that aren't recovering software nerds, lint was a program that would check your source code for errors, bugs, and undefined behaviors . See lint on wikipedia

So anyways, I'm wondering if there's anything similar for beer recipes, something that looks that the style of beer being attempted and the percentages of each ingredient, and can then list "warnings" about it. Like, "that's going to be super roasty using that much roasted barley and dark chocolate, consider reducing amount or doing a cold steep". Or "that is an aggressive amount of IBUs per OG"

Assuming there isn't already any such software (I couldn't find any), is there a list of general rule-of-thumb usages anywhere?

This would be pretty difficult considering the taste of beer is so subjective. For example, some people like more roast than chocolate in a stout and visa versa.

Brewing software does allow you to see if you're falling into the correct style guidelines for OG/FG, IBU, SRM, BU/GU ratio and Mash Ph but what you're looking for would be pretty difficult to create.

 

[nanobrau]

I wrote some linters for my recipes since my calculators are all in spreadsheets. Here's the ones I have so far:

1. Reduce sulfate to below 100ppm for light beers.
2. SO4-Cl Ratios: 0.5 too low, 9 too high.
3. Calcium: < 50 too low, > 150 too high.
4. Residual Alkalinity: < -100 too low, > 150 too high.
5. Boil Hops > 5.8 g/L is too high.
6. Aroma Hops (whirlpool, dryhop, etc.) > 5.8 g/L is too high.

Like @Sammy86 pointed out, these are somewhat subjective, but I did base them off of research such as Braukaiser's blog, John Palmer's books, etc. I plan to add more such as K-Meta sulfur dioxide ppm warnings. A roastiness warning would probably be a good one too.

 

[bracconiere]

uhh, well beer smith has a slider?

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Assuming there isn't already any such software (I couldn't find any), is there a list of general rule-of-thumb usages anywhere?

Some related ideas:

• competition style guidelines (@Sammy86 mentioned them earlier)
• water profiles, like style templates, can be useful for knowing when one is "coloring inside (or outside) the lines"
• 'style templates' and/or 'base recipes' based on style guidelines (see Designing Great Beers, Mastering Homebrew, and Simple Homebrewing). Examples:
  • Amazing Shape-Shifting Recipe where "the new homebrewer can create more than 100 different beers by making alternate choices of malts, hops and yeast within the safe guidelines of the recipe".
  • "Grain bill" formulation (based on percentages and grain categories/purpose) by SRM range. Hops, yeast, and water adjustments finish defining the style (e.g. American Pale Ale vs Belgian Pale Ale).
  • ...
  • Simple Homebrewing is a good starting point for 'base recipes'
  • Designing Great Beers has an analysis of (older) National Homebrew Competition winning recipes.
  • Someone (not the author) did an updated analysis back in 2017 or 2018 (posted initially in /r/homebrewing)

The creative stuff often happens on the edges. Knowing the guidelines (and which ones to break) is probably more interesting than having tools that evaluates the recipe.