Recipe help

[joey11bball]

Hello all
So Ive been trying to make my own IPA recipe and have tried many different recipe calculator websites to try to find OG and IBUs. Well Ive gotten a wide range of different OG and IBUs for the same ingredients. Does anyone have an opinion on which recipe calculator is best or is atleast somewhat accurate?
Thanks

 

[Bob]

Depends. Are you using the same variables?

For IBU: Different online calculators use different AA% values for the hops varieties. One might say Cascade is 5%, another 7%. That will impact what the calculator spits out. Plus they often use different formulae to calculate IBU.

For OG: Check the percentage which governs brewhouse efficiency. One calculator could be set to 65%, another 80%. Also, different calculators use different gravity contributions for ingredients; one might have Briess 2-row listed as 29ppg, another 24ppg.

You have to check the variables. Garbage in, garbage out.

Bob

 

[Grizzlybrew]

Depends. Are you using the same variables?

For IBU: Different online calculators use different AA% values for the hops varieties. One might say Cascade is 5%, another 7%. That will impact what the calculator spits out. Plus they often use different formulae to calculate IBU.

For OG: Check the percentage which governs brewhouse efficiency. One calculator could be set to 65%, another 80%. Also, different calculators use different gravity contributions for ingredients; one might have Briess 2-row listed as 29ppg, another 24ppg.

You have to check the variables. Garbage in, garbage out.

Bob

Good points. A good calculator allows you a multitude of variables (it's the reason I love ProMash!) Hops can be pellets, plugs, whole. Bittering method could be Tinseth or... let's just leave it at Tinseth jk.

Bob's right, you need to make sure your input and variables are the same across the board. There's only one way to calculate OG correctly and each Bittering method correctly. Your input is the only thing that will cause differences - unless the programmer screwed up his math.

You could also get Designing Great Beers or How to Brew and do all the math long hand. I think it's an important lesson in brewing to understand the formulas and relation between them.

 

[slowbie]

Also worth checking on the IBU front is your boil volume. I have not seen or heard of a calculator that is wrong or inaccurate compared to others, but each different calculator tends to have different default settings which you will need to look into and adjust as Bob already mentioned.

 

[joey11bball]

Thanks alot guys
I think it was the different sites have different AA% that was throwing me off. Should I check with my LHBS for what the values of their AA% are? Does it differ from store to store like website to website?

 

[slowbie]

The AA% will vary based on a lot of growing conditions that I do not fully understand. I would check with your LHBS if I were you. That's what I do. My LHBS has the AA% printed right on the label, as well as posted online, although I have found small (~.5%) differences between the online value and the one on the label.