bitterness unit question

[billk911]

I am planning on trying a clone of a sierra nevada porter. On thier website they have a 40 for the bitterness units. Is that the HBU and the IBU added together?

 

[ArcaneXor]

It'll be IBUs. Not sure what HBUs are.

 

[david_42]

HBU - homebrew bittering units, nothing more than admitting that when we brew we are estimating the bittering levels of the final product.

 

[IrregularPulse]

My question is how do you know what scale they're using?
Rager, Tinseth and Garet all give you considerbaly different IBU's. ESPECIALY Garet.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

My question is how do you know what scale they're using?
Rager, Tinseth and Garet all give you considerbaly different IBU's. ESPECIALY Garet.

You don't unless you ask them specifically. Tinseth seems to be the most "popular" from what I read. Best you can do is pick one and get familiar with the extraction efficiency of the method. Turns out that when compared to actual GC tests, none of the methods are exact. Too many variables at play here.

 

[ArcaneXor]

My question is how do you know what scale they're using?
Rager, Tinseth and Garet all give you considerbaly different IBU's. ESPECIALY Garet.

They are probably using actual, lab-determined IBUs, as I would assume do most of the large breweries.

 

[JuanKenobi]

I just started using Beersmith and I like it a lot, but I had to switch the bittering calculator from Tinseth to Rager in order to get anywhere near the IBU estimates based on BJCP style types. Tinseth seems to give me REALLY low IBU estimates, even with a 4 gallon boil for extract or PM brews (unfortunately I'm not yet equipped for AG yet).