Scaling recipes with HBU pack?

[WannaB1]

So I've been brewing for a while with only half understanding what I've been doing. I've recently upgraded my hardware and embarrassing as it is to say I just started looking at efficiency. I was going to buy a kit from AIH but figured I would just enter the recipe into brewfather and scale it and order all the ingredients from there. They have HBU packs listed under hops, not sure I know how to enter those in brewfather.

 

[DBhomebrew]

Say, a 1oz pack of EKG at 4.0%AA. That's 4HBU.

HBU = AA% * Weight

Next time you brew the recipe you have a new pack of EKG at 4.5%AA. If you used the whole pack you'd have 4.5HBU and your beer would be too bitter.

You need 4HBU at 4.5%AA.

4HBU/4.5AA = .88oz

 

[VikeMan]

They have HBU packs listed under hops, not sure I know how to enter those in brewfather.

An HBU is a "Homebrew Bittering Unit," which is a unit hardly anyone actually uses. It's the product of the Hop Weight in Ounces and the Hop Alpha Acid (AA) Percentage.

Example: If you had a 2 ounces of a 5% AA Hop, you'd have 2 x 5 = 10 HBUs

If you're looking at a recipe that calls for 10 HBUs (like a "10 HBU pack") and the hops that you have are 4% AA, then 10 / 4 = 2.5 ounces of hops needed. You'd enter 4% AA and 2.5 ounces in your software.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

which is a unit hardly anyone actually uses.

The numbers are small, the list of names is impressive

edits: typing

 

[WannaB1]

An HBU is a "Homebrew Bittering Unit," which is a unit hardly anyone actually uses. It's the product of the Hop Weight in Ounces and the Hop Alpha Acid (AA) Percentage.

Example: If you had a 2 ounces of a 5% AA Hop, you'd have 2 x 5 = 10 HBUs

If you're looking at a recipe that calls for 10 HBUs (like a "10 HBU pack") and the hops that you have are 4% AA, then 10 / 4 = 2.5 ounces of hops needed. You'd enter 4% AA and 2.5 ounces in your software.

Please bear with me. I don't have any hops so I was just going to order their HUB packs. My recipe called for (4+3) 7 HBUs at 60 minutes, I entered .7 ounces of 10% fictitious hop and scaled to my IBU and it gave me 1.2 ounces. So I need a total of 12 HBUs? If this isn't correct I think I'll scrap this recipe and just find a normal one.

 

[easttex]

Here is AIH's page on HBU:

https://www.homebrewing.org/What-Is-An-HBU-Pack_ep_114-1.html
Last time I talked to them, they were using Northern Brewer for their HBU packs.

They also have a link for a calculator spreadsheet buried on their website somewhere but I couldn't find it with my phone.

 

[VikeMan]

Please bear with me. I don't have any hops so I was just going to order their HUB packs. My recipe called for (4+3) 7 HBUs at 60 minutes, I entered .7 ounces of 10% fictitious hop and scaled to my IBU and it gave me 1.2 ounces. So I need a total of 12 HBUs? If this isn't correct I think I'll scrap this recipe and just find a normal one.

What do you mean by "scaled to my IBU?" If your recipe calls for 7 HBUs at 60 minutes, and you're making the same recipe (including batch size), then you need 7 HBUs, not 12 HBUs.

If the hops were 10% AA, yes, that would be 0.7 ounces. You would enter 0.7 ounces and 10% AA in your software.

If the hops were 5% AA, then you'd need 1.4 ounces.

I wonder if you're using a different IBU model than whoever wrote the original recipe. If that's the case, HBU computations are not the issue. If the original recipe and your software are using two different IBU models, you'll always have some mismatch when populating your software.