Beersmith Hop utilization

Just curious what everyone is setting their hop utilization percentage to when building recipes.

 

I have no idea what my actual utilization is but I’m sure it’s well below the default setting. That’s just comparing to commercial examples. Low hopped beers don’t necessarily taste sweet but I need to up the IBUs for beers that should have significant bitterness. It would be cool to send samples out for evaluation.

 

That’s exactly my problem. I’m not hitting my target with IPA’s but Beersmith calculates me to overshoot my desired IBU.

 

All brewing software (to my knowledge) uses the same basic models (Tinseth, Rager, Garetz) for modeling IBU from hop additions from boil additions. Each of the models have their flaws and limitations. Just a few of the factors that the IBU models do not take into account are: water chemistry (specifically Sulfate level and Sulfate to Chloride ratio), boil vigor, surface area of kettle, fermenter volume vs end of boil volume, and rate of chilling wort. Further, the test method for IBU value, while specific to the absorbance of isomerized alpha acids, also will reflect absorbance of other compounds. Additionally, other hop oils will add to the perception of bitterness (oxidized alpha acids, beta acids).

As GPP33 has stated, the best way to make the numbers make sense for your system and process is to calibrate your actual perception of bitterness with commercial beers. From this you can figure out where to target the calculated IBU numbers to the sensory perception you are targeting. To get a better sense of how the models fare in their predictions versus lab analysis across number of brewers, I would recommend Experimental Brewing's report and podcast on "The IBU is a Lie, kind of" which can be found at https://www.experimentalbrew.com/experiments/writeups/ibu-lie-kind and https://www.experimentalbrew.com/podcast/episode-32-ibu-lie.