What's with the fraction of oz measurements in recipes?

[Weezy]

No. A percentage itself doesn't prescribe sig figs. 80%=80.000%
Its the raw data you apply the ratio to that will dictate the sig figs.

This ain't a test! Its just going to be numbers we can look at and compare, for interests sake.

 

[boydster]

20 IBUs, then. Your hops calc is limited to 2 sig figs.

I agree on the grain bill, but to what resolution can you taste base malt?

 

[boydster]

Your starting gravity will determine the theoretical resolution for your grain bill. How much base grain does it take to adjust the gravity by 1 point? That number is the limit to which you can measure your base grain against the recipe.

Your taste buds provide the actual resolution, but good luck measuring that.

 

[LandoLincoln]

Well said. And that's how science works. Control what you can, be precise where you can, because of all the variables that you can't control. If you don't control the variables that you can control, things can only get worse. Nobody is wrong here.

Can we try a simple exercise?

Let me post this generic recipe that i just made up now and please take 5 minutes, throw it into your software, and post back your version of the recipe, with weights, that you'd actually brew including full specs. I'll post mine later too.

Mild Ale
OG 1.038

Grain bill
80% U.K. Pale Ale malt
7% Flaked Barley
5% Chocolate Malt
4% Cararye
4% Crystal 120

Hops
Fuggles - 20 IBUs@45 min.

Go!

You emphasized the wrong part. Try as you might, your beer is still going to vary. And things can indeed get better with that variance. So be as precise as it makes you happy, but understand that you're still not in as control of your final product as commercial breweries are. And for God's sake, don't criticize others for not being as precise as you.

Anyway...on to the experiment...

Well...I learned today that BeerSmith Mobile is totally lacking in recipe formulation. Just awful. Let me try Brewer's Friend web-based recipe maker instead...

Brewer's Friend didn't have Cararye in their grain list, so I had to do some online looking up of the grain and came up with 34 PPG and an average of 67 lovibond.

So for a 5.5 gallon batch assuming 75% efficiency and a 60-minute boil, I had the following:

6 lb UK Pale 2-row (82.8%)
.5 lb Flaked Barley (6.9%)
.25 lb UK - Chocolate (3.4%)
.25 lb American - Caramel / Crystal 120L (3.4%)
.25 lb Cararye (3.4%)

1.25 oz Fuggles @ 45 minutes (AA 4.5%)

1 pkg Wyeast British Ale 1335

OG 1.037
FG 1.009
IBU 21.95
SRM 15.64
ABV 3.59%

So now what?

 

[AnOldUR]

Can we try a simple exercise?

Let me post this generic recipe that i just made up now and please take 5 minutes, throw it into your software, and post back your version of the recipe, with weights, that you'd actually brew including full specs. I'll post mine later too.

The trouble is that the exercise is flawed (for me anyway.) I might write down the conversion to pounds out to a couple of decimal places, but when it comes time to weigh the grain I don't worry about them. If my brew sheet says 6.05 lbs of pale malt and my scale says 6.15 lbs after putting some grain on it, I'm not taking any off. It's going into the mill as is.

 

[boydster]

At 75% efficiency, it takes about 0.2 lbs of 2-row to change the gravity by one point. If you are within that margin of error, you essentially are making the same recipe.

 

[bob1852]

At 75% efficiency, it takes about 0.2 lbs of 2-row to change the gravity by one point. If you are within that margin of error, you essentially are making the same recipe.

Especially if you can accurately measure the gravity down to 0.01.

 

[boydster]

Especially if you can accurately measure the gravity down to 0.001.

Ftfy, and exactly. Now are you going to be able to taste the difference if this ends up being 1.036, 1.037, or even 1.040? Probably not, which means you have an even bigger margin of error when measuring grain before it causes a detectable change in the profile of the beer.

 

[bob1852]

Ftfy, and exactly. Now are you going to be able to taste the difference if this ends up being 1.036, 1.037, or even 1.040? Probably not, which means you have an even bigger margin of error when measuring grain before it causes a detectable change in the profile of the beer.

Yeah, and I measure OG with a refractometer and just take that *4, so I know my OG isn't totally accurate either. But, it works for me...

 

[dobe12]

If my brew sheet says 6.05 lbs of pale malt and my scale says 6.15 lbs after putting some grain on it, I'm not taking any off. It's going into the mill as is.

And hence the stupidity of going back and forth with the posts on this thread!

 

[Weezy]

I put together a table comparing the recipes. Interesting. I can't upload from my phone so I'll post later. On the 4% grains, there is a 18% variation between the low and high weights reported.

The trouble is that the exercise is flawed (for me anyway.) I might write down the conversion to pounds out to a couple of decimal places, but when it comes time to weigh the grain I don't worry about them. If my brew sheet says 6.05 lbs of pale malt and my scale says 6.15 lbs after putting some grain on it, I'm not taking any off. It's going into the mill as is.

Exactly right! This is what we all do, I'm sure. Nobody is going to reach down in that bucket and start picking out a couple grains. If my recipe says 3.83 pounds and i pour to 3.9 pounds, im fine too. GUYS, if you reread my posts, I'm NOT saying we should be weighing to 0.001 lbs! What I am saying is to be honest in your recipe formulation, leave the rounding to when your pouring the grain...DON'T round on your paper recipe. You're double rounding in the end...once on recipe formulation and once again when weighing. If the recipe calls for 3.85 oz? Round paper recipe to 4 oz? Then you pour grains on the scale and then overshoot to 4.1 oz? Its a compounding problem. Critical? Likely not but it just adds a lot of variability you don't need when trying to dial in a recipe. If you're working on a clone recipe that needs 0.5% black patent, it can be critical.

 

[bob1852]

I put together a table comparing the recipes. Interesting. I can't upload from my phone so I'll post later. On the 4% grains, there is a 18% variation between the low and high weights reported.




Exactly right! This is what we all do, I'm sure. Nobody is going to reach down in that bucket and start picking out a couple grains. If my recipe says 3.83 pounds and i pour to 3.9 pounds, im fine too. GUYS, if you reread my posts, I'm NOT saying we should be weighing to 0.001 lbs! What I am saying is to be honest in your recipe formulation, leave the rounding to when your pouring the grain...DON'T round on your paper recipe. You're double rounding in the end...once on recipe formulation and once again when weighing. If the recipe calls for 3.85 oz? Round paper recipe to 4 oz? Then you pour grains on the scale and then overshoot to 4.1 oz? Its a compounding problem. Critical? Likely not but it just adds a lot of variability you don't need when trying to dial in a recipe. If you're working on a clone recipe that needs 0.5% black patent, it can be critical.

I measure smaller amounts of grain by a ~12oz scoop from a bucket to the bowl I'm weighing in. If I'm shooting for 4oz. I hit 4oz.

Again, I build my recipes and brew schedule so I don't have random left over grains that accumulate.

I do it for convenience, to avoid waste, and because the end result isn't going to be different enough to worry about.

 

[LandoLincoln]

If you're working on a clone recipe that needs 0.5% black patent, it can be critical.

That's assuming someone can taste a difference between 0.5% black patent malt or 1% black patent malt. I'd be willing to bet they can't.

 

[morticaixavier]

That's assuming someone can taste a difference between 0.5% black patent malt or 1% black patent malt. I'd be willing to bet they can't.

but can you SEE the difference between .5% and 1%? (just devils advocate here) an addition like that is almost certainly for color adjustment only.

Pretty minor but...

 

[Weezy]

Good point and it would depend. If it was a 3.5% mild, I know I could tell the difference.

I hope you guys see what I mean, anyways. I was working on recipe thus week where I was targeting 5% of 3 special grains. Once I built the recipe, they came out to like 0.261 pounds. I rounded to 1/4 pound each and the percentage went to like 4.31%. Common numbers are nice. I'll brew it and evaluate, nut I expect I'll want to tweak it after tasting. Some might go up, some might go down. I'll end up with goofy weights on each, I'm sure.

 

[bob1852]

Good point and it would depend. If it was a 3.5% mild, I know I could tell the difference.

I hope you guys see what I mean, anyways. I was working on recipe thus week where I was targeting 5% of 3 special grains. Once I built the recipe, they came out to like 0.261 pounds. I rounded to 1/4 pound each and the percentage went to like 4.31%. Common numbers are nice. I'll brew it and evaluate, nut I expect I'll want to tweak it after tasting. Some might go up, some might go down. I'll end up with goofy weights on each, I'm sure.

See, I do the opposite. If I'm building a recipe, it's for my system, so I don't really care about % just total weight.

If someone else wants the recipe, I'll usually give the total weight, efficiency, pre/post volume, and let them scale it out to their system.

I'd rather build a recipe on 2oz, 0.25, 0.5, and 1lb grain increments than 1%, 5%, 10%, or 15% grist percentages.

Like you said, common numbers are nice, and I prefer to use common numbers on my weights (not %) since that's how I'm buying grain.

 

[boydster]

I see what you mean, but to bring it back to the point of the thread:

Is it just me? It seems nuts to me to put fraction of oz's of base malt in a recipe.
...

The OP was referring only to base malt, not specialty grains, and his point remains valid IMHO.

 

[LandoLincoln]

but can you SEE the difference between .5% and 1%? (just devils advocate here) an addition like that is almost certainly for color adjustment only.

Pretty minor but...

Very minor. Beersmith tells me that the difference between .5% black patent malt addition and a 1% malt addition is about 1.4 SRM's. That might be noticeable. MIGHT be.

 

[Weezy]

Here's a summary of the recipes. The percentages in red are showing the spread of the percentages of each ingredient (except hops. Doesn't really work there). The last column shows what percentage that variation is in comparison to the original recipe percentage.

It was an interesting exercise, to see how different people approach recipes. A more complex recipe would have shown even more variation. My recipe would essentially be the same as Geoff's, except it spits out pounds in decimals (no ounces), and I measure hops in grams.

A lot of it is habit. AZ is buying grain by the ounce so that has a big factor in recipe formulation. Others said they can't really measure less than 1/4 pound. Lots of variables that we each deal with differently. Using percentages when posting a recipe works well as it lets each of it account for our own requirements and limitations more easily.

 

[masskrug]

Nearest half pound (8 oz) for me on specialty grain, but I usually just round up

 

[RCCOLA]

WRT the OP: When BeerCalculus migrated everyone's recipes to Brewtoad, many of the ingredient amount numbers ended up with strange amounts like
.31 lbs. I had to edit my recipes back to normal. It won't let me fix some of them, they revert back to the hundreth decimal when saved.

I think it converted ozs to lbs during the migration and didn't deal with it well.