Which recipe site is more accurate?

[forces]

http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe

or

http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/recipe.html

??

Just as a test, I put in 10lb of Amber DME and;
Beercalculus: OG. = 1.090, FG = 1.022, ABV 7.0 (using WLP001)
Tastybrew: OG. = 1.068, FG = 1.017, ABV 6.6 (using unkonwn strain @ 75% attenuation)

Both come out with similar ABV, but the gravities are pretty far off. Are either of these sites any good at all for estimating O.G./ F.G.?

 

[z987k]

10lbs DME in 5.00 gallons is 1.090. I bet you have the volume off in the other one.

 

[corvax13]

Just did the test myself, both on 5g. Seems like BeerCalculus is more accurate, but I don't have any software to compare it to.

Anyone here with Beer Tools or similar care to make a comparison? I'm interested in this myself, as I use BeerCalculus extensively.

 

[z987k]

more accurate... simply is. 10lbs dme + 5 gallons of water = 1.090 no matter what.

 

[mcstout]

I like to use http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe. It seems to hit the gravity right on as long as you pick the exact ingredients that you are using. I have never used the other site though, and unless it is amazing I am going to stick with hopville. I already have some plugged in and dont want to do it again.

 

[TipsyDragon]

i would say report the bug to TastyBrew. its wrong.

 

[Synovia]

i would say report the bug to TastyBrew. its wrong.

My guess would be that they're assuming 75% efficiency across the board, and forgetting to remove that for extract.

90*.75=67.5

 

[TipsyDragon]

hence the need for a bug report.

 

[BarleyWater]

I got 1.090 on tasty brew, you probably forgot to change it to extract.

 

[Synovia]

I got 1.090 on tasty brew, you probably forgot to change it to extract.

I get 1.068 with extract set in both Firefox and IE. I've set extract in the Recipe type and the actual ingredient.

 

[BarleyWater]

I get 1.068 with extract set in both Firefox and IE. I've set extract in the Recipe type and the actual ingredient.

I did absolutely nothing but change this...

Where it says mashed on the right, switch to extract.

 

[Synovia]

I did absolutely nothing but change this...

Where it says mashed on the right, switch to extract.

Never even saw that.


It seems like really poor design to me, and I still think its a bug.

 

[Walker]

For what it's worth....

I've looked at several people's recipes on here in the last few weeks and I have found that hopville's IBU calculations seem to be wrong... sometimes considerably.

I plugged a few recipes into ProMash, BeerSmith, and hopville's calculator, and found differences of about 1 IBU between BeerSmith and ProMash, but hopville was giving results that were 10-15 IBUs lower than the other programs.

 

[mcstout]

I was thinking about trying out beersmith. I have been using hopville, and noticed that my IIPA was as hoppy as I thought 85 IBU should be. I think I will do some comparisons.

 

[Walker]

my IIPA was as hoppy as I thought 85 IBU should be.

"was" or "wasn't" as hoppy as you thought it should be?

If hopville gave you 85 IBU, my limited set of experiments says that your beer (using promash or beersmith) would have had HIGHER than 85 IBUs.

 

[remilard]

For what it's worth....

I've looked at several people's recipes on here in the last few weeks and I have found that hopville's IBU calculations seem to be wrong... sometimes considerably.

I plugged a few recipes into ProMash, BeerSmith, and hopville's calculator, and found differences of about 1 IBU between BeerSmith and ProMash, but hopville was giving results that were 10-15 IBUs lower than the other programs.

Are they using the same model of hop utilization?

 

[Revvy]

For what it's worth....

I've looked at several people's recipes on here in the last few weeks and I have found that hopville's IBU calculations seem to be wrong... sometimes considerably.

I plugged a few recipes into ProMash, BeerSmith, and hopville's calculator, and found differences of about 1 IBU between BeerSmith and ProMash, but hopville was giving results that were 10-15 IBUs lower than the other programs.

Are they using the same model of hop utilization?

+1

This is from the hopville blog that explains how they figure ibu's in beer calculus.

Previously all IBU results were calculated using an ages-old custom formula that combined parts of the “Daniels method” with the “Garetz method”. I’ve now updated the IBU number to be customizable to the popular formulas (Tinseth, Garetz, Rager), but I also left in the old “Hopville method” so that existing recipes keep their existing IBU value. By default, new recipes added to Hopville will calculate IBUs by averaging the three commonly used formulas, but brewers with a formula preference can customize to use that instead.

It's very important if one is comparing recipes on different calculators to know what default formula the software uses, and make sure they match. Otherwise they are going to show different numbers....and both be right.

 

[Walker]

Are they using the same model of hop utilization?

I don't know.

One recipe I plugged in was 50 IBU in Promash & Beersmith, but only 35 IBU on Hopville. Would the utilization model cause that big of a difference?

 

[remilard]

I don't know.

One recipe I plugged in was 50 IBU in Promash & Beersmith, but only 35 IBU on Hopville. Would the utilization model cause that big of a difference?

Not normally. Rager is generally higher than Tinseth and much higher for late additions. If you had a lot of IBUs from late additions, maybe. That seems like a big difference though.

 

[wildwest450]

I got 1.090 also, I suspect user error.

 

[Walker]

With respects to gravity: all calculators that I have messed with agree on gravity within 0.001. It's just the IBUs with hopville that I saw issues with.

 

[khiddy]

I like the Hopville recipe formulator, I use it for all of my recipes (except the ones that I develop on-the-go using Brew Pal on the iPhone).

FWIW, I've switched to the "Hopville" calculation method for my hand-built recipes, and find that the bitterness (and BU:GU balance) is pretty accurate. Because the IBU calculation will affect the ratio between bitterness and gravity, the method you choose will affect this balance. A BU:GU ratio of 0.50 is well-balanced; I strive for such balance in my milds and browns, whereas IPAs move higher towards 1.00, and weizens lower towards 0.30.

If I am cloning a recipe in a book or magazine, I check to see what calculation method they use, and then choose that method with the drop-down box in Hopville. It can't get much easier than that. If you're finding calculation errors, then I suspect that you're not using the proper calculation method.

 

[Walker]

If I am cloning a recipe in a book or magazine, I check to see what calculation method they use, and then choose that method with the drop-down box in Hopville. It can't get much easier than that. If you're finding calculation errors, then I suspect that you're not using the proper calculation method.

It was actually a post from you that made me check out hopville's calculator.

Someone posted a recipe that had an IBU count of about 49, and you responded that the IBUs were actually closer to 30-ish using hopville's calculator.

That's when I plugged the recipe into both ProMash and BeerSmith and found that those two programs also came up with 50 IBUs.

I checked out some other free calculators and got ranges of 30-42 or so.

My point is that the couple of commercial software packages were coming up with consistent numbers, and those numbers were differrent than every free calculator I tried.

edit for clarification: not every recipe I threw through the calculators came up with large differences, but I saw several that came up way different than ProMash and BeerSmith.

 

[Walker]

missed Revvy's post earlier.

I understand that different methods give different results and all are "correct"... I was just shocked to see a different of aruond 15 IBUs in a moderately hoppy beer. Seemed too much of a difference to me...

 

[khiddy]

It was actually a post from you that made me check out hopville's calculator.

I do appreciate the double-check! I am new to the hobby, and it's something that I am learning as I go.

As I mentioned, I find that the BU:GU guidance given by hopville using the "Hopville Method" of IBU calculation seems to taste pretty good in the batches that I've done. If hopville indicates that I'm close to a 0.50 BU:GU, then I expect a pretty fair balance. If it's closer to a whole number, I'll expect a hop-bomb.

Short of lab tests, it's hard to really pin down whose calculation algorithm is closer to accurate. I guess you could report it as a bug to the developer of hopville, if BeerSmith and ProMash are consistent with their calculation. But it will take a lab test to really prove who's more accurate, and that may be research that has to be undertaken by one of the deep pockets in the industry.

 

[mcstout]

"was" or "wasn't" as hoppy as you thought it should be?

If hopville gave you 85 IBU, my limited set of experiments says that your beer (using promash or beersmith) would have had HIGHER than 85 IBUs.

I checked again last night. It does seem hoppier. It had been awhile since I had one and I misspoke myself. I quickly read yesterday and thought it was supposed to be less IBU that what hopville says.

So from now on I will use another program.

 

[PhillyBeerGuy]

Just an FYI from the hopville blog from the same day as the last update to this topic.

http://hopville.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/defaulting-to-tinseth/

Now you can use hopville and modify the ibu calculation formula. Seems to be pretty nice, you guys should take a second look.

 

[Cheaton]

Tastybrew doesn't seem to calculate the IBU's correctly for a partial boil. Hop utilization goes up when it should go down. However if I assume a full boil (which i can do because I'll be doing a late extract addition) the two sites seem pretty close, within 1 point in IBUs for my recipe. I do appreciate that the Tastybrew site allows you to choose a "steep" option for the grains area. Hopville doesn't accommodate steeping grains that I can see.