Offer any suggestions?

[bonzombiekitty]

brewing this weekend and going with an APA this time.

4 lbs light DME (late addition)
1 lb Marris Otter
1lb Crystal 20L
8oz Honey Malt
8oz dextrin

hops:

1 oz Amarillo (8.5) - 60 min
.5 oz Ahtanum (4.5) - 30 min
.5 oz Ahtanum (4.5) - 15 min
.5 oz kent golding (4.5) - post boil
.5 oz kent golding (4.5) - dry hop, 7 days.

The malts came mixed together already, except for the DME of course. So I can't REMOVE anything.

Any suggested alterations?

Edit: something doesn't seem right about this (am trying to remember it off the top of my head) lemme look it over again
Edit #2: Nevermind. Found the problem, just had it in the calculator wrong.

 

[Walker]

It looks decent to me. The bittering:gravity ratio is a little higher than I would use for a Pale Ale, but I'm sure it will be good.

 

[bonzombiekitty]

It looks decent to me. The bittering:gravity ratio is a little higher than I would use for a Pale Ale, but I'm sure it will be good.

According the calculator, I fall within the numbers for both APA and ESB. I'm not entirely sure which fits best.

 

[Walker]

Well, the numbers fit into the low end of the IPA category, too.

 

[Walker]

I am getting (assuming 70% efficiency on the grain and all pellet hops) an OG of 1.051 and 50 IBUs.

It'll be a hoppy beer.

But, why get all worked up over declaring a style for it? It'll be beer, and it'll be good, and you'll drink it.

 

[bonzombiekitty]

I am getting (assuming 70% efficiency on the grain and all pellet hops) an OG of 1.051 and 50 IBUs.

According to the calculator at hopville, I'm getting an IBU of 30.9

It'll be a hoppy beer.

Which is fine for me.

But, why get all worked up over declaring a style for it? It'll be beer, and it'll be good, and you'll drink it.

I'm not worked up about it. I really don't care much beyond wanting to know the best thing to write on the label

 

[Walker]

According to the calculator at hopville, I'm getting an IBU of 30.9

I've never used hopville, but I just went and plugged this in there and I get the same thing.

What volume of wort are you boiling?

If I put in "3" I get 30.9 IBU.
If I put in "5" I get 36.0 IBU.

I ran it through my ProMash software and I get 50.1 IBU with a 5 gallon batch.

That's quite a discrepancy in IBUs!

I ran it through another calculator and came up with 39 IBUs.

Yet another calculator gave me 40 IBU.

Interesting....

 

[Walker]

Beersmith also gives me 51 IBU.

Personally, I am more inclined to believe "commercial" brewing software like ProMash and BeerSmith than I am to believe some free website calculator, especially since I now see two commercial packages giving a consistent answer and a bunch of free web-based ones giving wildly different answers.

 

[bonzombiekitty]

I've never used hopville, but I just went and plugged this in there and I get the same thing.

What volume of wort are you boiling?

If I put in "3" I get 30.9 IBU.
If I put in "5" I get 36.0 IBU.

I ran it through my ProMash software and I get 50.1 IBU with a 5 gallon batch.

That's quite a discrepancy in IBUs!

I ran it through another calculator and came up with 39 IBUs.

Yet another calculator gave me 40 IBU.

Interesting....

I forgot to set the boil size. In my case it'll probably be 4 gallons since 5 gallons is pushing what my stove can effectively boil, which gives an IBU of 33.8.

The calculator at tastybrew gives 43 for a 5 gallon boil... and 60 for a 4 gallon boil!

 

[Walker]

see my previous comment and my newly formed opinion on free calculators.

You get what you pay for.

 

[bonzombiekitty]

Beersmith also gives me 51 IBU.

Personally, I am more inclined to believe "commercial" brewing software like ProMash and BeerSmith than I am to believe some free website calculator, especially since I now see two commercial packages giving a consistent answer and a bunch of free web-based ones giving wildly different answers.

Hmmm.. while 51 is OK, I really didn't want to go that hoppy. Maybe I'll cut back on the Admiral some.

 

[Walker]

Now, hang on a second.....

The gravity of your boil volume affects hops utilization. That is something that a lot of the free calculators don't take into consideration.

Those hops in a 5 gallon boil are going to give you more IBUs than those same hops in 4 gallon boil than is then diluted to 5 gallons in the fermenter.

Some of the free ones I was messing with did not allow me to put in both a "boil volume" and a "final volume". They just had a "volume" entry. Those are probably assuming no dilution. I think this is why tastybrew gave you 43 IBU @ 5 gal and 60 IBU @ 4 gal... thay are assuming you are making either a 5 gal or 4 gal batch with no dilution.

I use ProMash, but I don't readily know how to set it up for a partial volume boil. It looks like hopville attempts to take boil gravity into consideration, but there was still a big difference between hopville @ 5gal and ProMash or BeerSmith at @ 5gal, so I am still suspicious of hopville.

Since you are boiling 4gal, then you won't get 50 IBUs, but I honestly can't tell you off hand what you will get.

 

[bonzombiekitty]

But at the same time, I'm saving the DME for late addition, shouldn't that also increase hop utilization?

 

[Walker]

Yes, it will. You might actually get MORE than 50 IBU.

You're on your own here. I say just brew it and see how it comes out.

 

[bonzombiekitty]

meh, I'll just put the DME in at the beginning like normal. No biggie. I don't want to get TOO hoppy.

 

[Walker]

For what it's worth, I used ProMash with ONLY your grains and those hops and set it for a 4 gallon batch.

That came out to 63.1 IBUs. If I assume that IBU's dilute linearly:

4 gallon @ 63 IBU = 5 gallons @ 50 IBUs

So, it almost seems like the utilization isn't affected by the DME. If I go back to a 5 gallon batch with the 4lbs of DME in ProMash, then I am still at 50 IBUs. The IBUs don't get affected by the DME until I get more than 4lbs in the recipe.

Strange, but makes it look like utilization isn't affected by the gravity until the gravity gets over 1.055. Once above this, the IBUs start to drop as I add more DME to the recipe.

 

[Walker]

Damnit... forgot to add one comment.

a 4 gallon batch with your recipe in ProMash is 59 IBU.

4gal@59 = 5gal@50

So, several ways of getting to it, but it I suspect you will get 50 IBUs.

Ok, I am really done jabbering on this thread.

Brew on!:rockin: