how trustworthy are most recipe calculators?

[doverox]

hello again,
i am days away from brewing my first biab, which will be a 3 gal. batch.
i searched high and low for a recipe that was simple but still appealed to me. i couldn't find one. i decided to try my hand at making my own.
i was able to develop a recipe by tweaking a few that i've seen, which i know is what most people do. my recipe checks out as far as style guidelines according to brewtoad.
so should i just go for it? is it too risky as a first timer?
thanks

 

[frazier]

Just go for it!

Think of it this way - right now, you have no experience in evaluating recipes. But a year from now, you'll have (let's say) 12 recipes under your belt, and this will be just one of those data points. You gotta get that experience!

Cheers,

 

[LLBeanJ]

Not really risky in the big scheme of things, since it's only a batch of beer and worse case is that it's undrinkable and you toss it out. Regardless of the outcome, you'll learn a thing or two from it.

I'd suggest you post your recipe so folks here can review it and let you know if there are any glaring issues.

 

[McGarnigle]

Let me guess: basic IPA, but you're adding cherries, oak, chocolate, vanilla, coffee, bourbon and nuts?

That's what sinks people: trying to include everything.

 

[doverox]

Let me guess: basic IPA, but you're adding cherries, oak, chocolate, vanilla, coffee, bourbon and nuts?

That's what sinks people: trying to include everything.

haha actually, i am going the total opposite route. i don't care for much sweetness in my ipa's at all. i was having a hard time finding an easy but interesting recipe with no caramel malt.

i'm expecting it to be quite hoppy and fruity with minimal sweetness (along the lines of stone enjoy by)

this is what i came up with:
(3 gal. american ipa biab)
3 lbs pale malt 2 row
2 lbs pale malt maris otter
.5 munich

60 min boil with .25 oz. first gold
20 min .5 oz simcoe
10 min 1 oz. citra
1/2 package safale us-50

brewtoad predicts this to have an og of 1.058 with about 60 ibu's and abv of 5.7. (srm just makes it at 6)
thoughts?

 

[unionrdr]

Yup. I follow the KISS principle...Keep It Simple, Stupid! The more you add to a beer, the more likely for it to be a stinker. Small steps along the brewing journey work out better.

 

[paperairplane]

I'm sure it will be fine. I started all grain with all my own recipes after 3 extract batches. (assuming 5gal BIAB setup)

Here's a super simple pale ale:

10# Marris Otter
4oz Cascade
1 Pack S05

Mash around 150* for an hour in about 7.5 gallons of water.
1oz of Cascade @ 60, 1oz at 15 and 2oz at flameout

Chill, pitch yeast and ferment for 3 weeks in primary. Cold crash and package.

I don't know what the numbers are - and it doesn't matter. This will be a nice color from the MO, should be fairly sessionable, and should be liked by most people.

Do some simple recipes and make some basic style beers - nice dry stout is pretty fool proof:
10# 2 row
2 # flaked barley or oats
1-2# black patent or roasted black barley
1oz Fuggles or EKG at 60 mins
S04 or S05

There's 2 easy recipes with no math or calculator required. Both easily drinkable within 5-6 weeks of brew day. 4 weeks if you keg.

 

[McGarnigle]

haha actually, i am going the total opposite route. i don't care for much sweetness in my ipa's at all. i was having a hard time finding an easy but interesting recipe with no caramel malt.

i'm expecting it to be quite hoppy and fruity with minimal sweetness (along the lines of stone enjoy by)

this is what i came up with:
(3 gal. american ipa biab)
3 lbs pale malt 2 row
2 lbs pale malt maris otter
.5 munich

60 min boil with .25 oz. first gold
20 min .5 oz simcoe
10 min 1 oz. citra
1/2 package safale us-50

brewtoad predicts this to have an og of 1.058 with about 60 ibu's and abv of 5.7. (srm just makes it at 6)
thoughts?

Looks good. I trust the online calculators I've used. If I enter the recipe into multiples, they seem to give the same results.

One big caveat is mash efficiency. It might help to have some DME lying around in case you come in low. Higher efficiency than you expect may require adjustments as well.

 

[doverox]

Looks good. I trust the online calculators I've used. If I enter the recipe into multiples, they seem to give the same results.

One big caveat is mash efficiency. It might help to have some DME lying around in case you come in low. Higher efficiency than you expect may require adjustments as well.

so. i went ahead and made my original recipe. it was my first homebrew ever. (yes, i know it's not typical/it's nutso to use a recipe of my own creation AND do use all grain as a first timer. but i'm nutso.)

i underestimated my efficiency. was over about .010 at pre-boil.
i did not squeeze my bag, just drained it with a strainer.
i ended up with almost a full gallon more in the fermenter! i'm confused.

hours, started seeing activity after about 15 mins in the bubbler.

my plan is to leave it alone for 10-14 days and see what's going on. thoughts?

 

[McGarnigle]

I have no idea what's going on. It's not impossible to overshoot efficiency, but it's less usual for it to happen to a first timer. Are you confident your gravity reading was correct? This isn't a situation where you topped off with water later on?

What's puzzling is that you ended up with more liquid, which would work against your gravity. How did that happen? Grains didn't soak up as much as you thought, maybe. But a full gallon is a lot.

Activity after 15 minutes doesn't sound like it could be fermentation. Maybe it was an air pressure difference causing air to escape. But this wouldn't be continuous bubbling.

I would leave it for 14 days or more no matter what. Take a reading before then just to confirm it fermented down the right amount.

 

[doverox]

I have no idea what's going on. It's not impossible to overshoot efficiency, but it's less usual for it to happen to a first timer. Are you confident your gravity reading was correct? This isn't a situation where you topped off with water later on?

What's puzzling is that you ended up with more liquid, which would work against your gravity. How did that happen? Grains didn't soak up as much as you thought, maybe. But a full gallon is a lot.

Activity after 15 minutes doesn't sound like it could be fermentation. Maybe it was an air pressure difference causing air to escape. But this wouldn't be continuous bubbling.

I would leave it for 14 days or more no matter what. Take a reading before then just to confirm it fermented down the right amount.

it wasn't quite a full gallon but almost. and i didn't add water at all.
the program i used estimated a post boil volume of 4 gallons but 3 gallons into fermenter. that is confusing to me. where is that 1 gallon loss?

also, the bubbling has maintained since that first sign of life at 15-20 mins. it's a pretty steady, light bubble- every 10 seconds or so i see action.

i was planning to give it 10 days before checking the gravity and go from there. if there's still action going on now and it's been 15 hours so something's happening

 

[bernardsmith]

it wasn't quite a full gallon but almost. and i didn't add water at all.
the program i used estimated a post boil volume of 4 gallons but 3 gallons into fermenter. that is confusing to me. where is that 1 gallon loss?

also, the bubbling has maintained since that first sign of life at 15-20 mins. it's a pretty steady, light bubble- every 10 seconds or so i see action.

i was planning to give it 10 days before checking the gravity and go from there. if there's still action going on now and it's been 15 hours so something's happening

Total beginner at brewing (but been making wine and mead for some years). The loss of 1 gallon is likely to come from the boiling. You shouldn't completely cover your kettle but allow the vapor to escape. That vapor will carry with it some of the precursors to what sometimes causes off flavors (is it called DMS -dimethyl sulfide?). If you did not lose any volume in boiling then there is a risk that you have not boiled off the DMS. If you lose too much liquid then that affects the boil gravity and so has an impact on the utilization of alpha acids from the hops. So finding the sweet spot - enough coverage to prevent too much boil off and enough opening to allow sufficient boil off - is something we are supposed to learn through what? Practice? (I think it is somehow related to the volume of your kettle and its diameter but I wouldn't swear to that)
But of course I may be so wrong-headed here that others in this forum may be wetting themselves...

 

[TallDan]

You really haven't given much information for anyone to help troubleshoot. What was your anticipated efficiency and gravity and what was the actual efficiency and gravity?

If the calculator told you that you would have 4 gallons post boil and 3 in the fermenter, it was likely assuming that you would lose 1 gallon with trub loss or kettle deadspace. That is way higher than I would expect from a small batch, so you might have to edit the defaults in the calculator to match your equipment better.

 

[doverox]

thank you, yes it was in fact the post-boil to fermenter prediction that puzzled me. a loss of 1 gallon from post-boil to fermenter seems excessive, especially when biab'ing and using hop bags. there was very little sediment at the bottom.
i started pre-boil with 5.10 gallons and my post-boil poured just under 4 into the fermenter so that seems about right if i disregard the bizarre prediction.