most sccurate

[adworld]

whats the most accurate tool/calculator? I have played with 3 tools and seems to me each is different and gives me different readings when putting in a recipe. Beersmith, Brewers Friend and Hopville.

which is the best for a n00b?

 

[Revvy]

Accurate in terms of what?

 

[adworld]

Accurate in terms of what?

recipe building for a new guy who is not yet schooled on brewing either a hoppy beer or a malty beer. I tend to like malty beers with a hit of hops

 

[Revvy]

I still don't understand what specifically you're looking for. I've used both beersmith and beercalculus and find that they are both incredibly accurate tools for recipe creation.

I have found that most descripencies/issues that folks have have more to do with operator error then issues with the software.

 

[two_one_seven]

I still don't understand what specifically you're looking for. I've used both beersmith and beercalculus and find that they are both incredibly accurate tools for recipe creation.

I have found that most descripencies/issues that folks have have more to do with operator error then issues with the software.

+1

If you want a specific answer we need a specific question......

 

[Revvy]

+1

If you want a specific answer we need a specific question......

Yes...But I'll take a stab at something that pops up here a lot.

A couple of the biggest issues that cause consternation to folks, especially if they compare programs, or if they take for example a recipe from byo or someplace and input it, and find differences have to do with batch size settings and which IBU formula the software is defaulting to.

The final volume of a lot of Palmer and Jamil's recipes, and some of them in magazines are usually 5.5 or 6 gallons whereas most of the time we write recipes for the standard 5 gallon recipes. That often accounts for differences between what we might input in software. Make sure the final volume is matching.

The other thing is, that there's several different calculations used to figure out IBU. And they give different numbers. Somewhere in either a book or on the software it should tell you what the default setting is, and even give you the option to change it to match. But often they don't make it obvious.

Here's an explanation of how Beercalculus calculates it from their Hopville Blog for example;

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.

IIRC beercalculus is defalted to tinseth (maybe). So comparing the two in terms of IBUS is going to show up differently.

One of the most recent thread discussing this is here. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f84/different-ibus-provided-different-software-218066/

The other thing has to do with the efficience a given recipe was created with and the efficiency setting in the particular software. 75% is usually the default in the software, but a lot of folks, especially people who have their systems dialed in may have a higher or lower efficiency setting in their native software, so the anticipated og and fg may be different.

None of these are the software, or mean that one software is better than the other. Often it's the user's own settings that are off.

 

[pelipen]

I have not yet exceeded the capabilities of iBrewmaster for iRipyouoff devices, BrewzorPro on android, or excel.
They all use pretty similar formulas, so as long as you enter decent data, you'll be accurate to within expected results.
there is good stuff on the web too. Beer calculus, etc.
I think it's less about accuracy as finding one you like.

 

[two_one_seven]

Agreed Revvy. Very nice run down.

 

[khiddy]

About the IBU calculation method, what is the consensus on which one is more accurate? I mean, Tinseth, Rager, Garetz, which one will produce the best prediction of just how bitter my beer will be (taking into account first the method, then the BU:GU ratio)?

 

[Revvy]

About the IBU calculation method, what is the consensus on which one is more accurate? I mean, Tinseth, Rager, Garetz, which one will produce the best prediction of just how bitter my beer will be (taking into account first the method, then the BU:GU ratio)?

I don't think anyone's clarifyed what the the scale of the standard bu:gu ratio is based on. Good question.

But in terms of accuracy, they're all accurate, you might think of it simply being that they're in different languages....as long as you stay consistant in using one over any other it will be right.

But in reality it's all arbitrary anyway...they're just numbers.

If you ever listened to Palmer's basic brewing interview shortly after he attended a professional conference on hops and brewing, where he admits he got it all screwed up, you'll realize none of it really matters...

March 20, 2008 - What Is an IBU . . . Really?
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

 

[Revvy]

I think a better analogy than what I posted above would be instead of languages think about Fahrenheit vs Celcius or Brix vs specific gravity, they're valid and accurate scales. Just present the same "data" differently.

 

[adworld]

I think a better analogy than what I posted above would be instead of languages think about Fahrenheit vs Celcius or Brix vs specific gravity, they're valid and accurate scales. Just present the same "data" differently.

revvy thanks for the info. it's almost like you live on the HBT forum which I am totally ok with chase you've helped me out many times, thanks bud!!

but yes it seems like each program will be different kinda like Windows is different then Linux. I will play around with each a bit more and see which works best for me.

thanks again