Haus Notes: A Calculator Here, A Calculator There…
So, a bit of a surprise for me (being a newbie), though it shouldn’t have been. My calculations for recipes have been pretty off. I should have known when my White House Honey Porter recipe kit turned up with an IBU rating of 51. That would be a pretty hoppy IPA, right there.
But not only should a Porter not have 51 IBUs, the final product didn’t taste like it had 51 IBUs. That’s a bitter beer for it to be so (in reality) sweet.
So I’m tossing out the tastybrew.com calculator, and have found one that not only makes more sense, but provides additional information as far as style matches, etc. And that’s the calculator at brewersfriend.com.
Let me tell you what I’m talking about.
In between trying to come up with my own first recipe (which I have done), I sought some feedback from the helpful folks at HomeBrewTalk.com’s forums. After presenting my recipes there for feedback (before I go and blow the money to make really bad beer), they noticed my calculations were really screwy. So I found the alternate calculator, and was advised they looked more in-line with what they should be, given both the style and grain bill.
So I went back and looked at my TastyBrew calculations for the White House Honey Porter. There you see them in the screen shot. I thought the ABV seemed low, and, as I mentioned, I knew the IBUs were wrong. Turns out, everything was a bit wrong.
So I tried out the calculator at BrewersFriend. And here’s what I got. Higher OG and FG (like I expected), higher ABV, WAY lower IBUs, though the SRM was pretty close. But what was even handier is that it told me, going by those numbers, it matched the basic style of beer that it was.
Further, it confirmed, given the honeyed nature of this recipe, results on the higher end of both the OG and FG.
All is right with the world again. And I will be updating the past posts (fortunately there hasn’t been many of them yet) with the corrected data.
Thanks for the nice review of Brewer’s Friend. Let us know if there is anything we can do. Happy brewing!
Hey! Thanks, Larry! Will do!
And I always appreciate the spreading of word!