Bitterness Way-off

[RabMaxwell]

Hello all the last beer i made a Belhaven clone is lacking on hop oomph used my quite newly acquired Promash program to calculate the hop bill. I used challenger hops (6.1% alpha) for 90 min for 28 EBU bitterness for 110 Litre batch size. / Promash figure gave 155g hops. So i have now used my old method from Wheeler to see the difference hear goes.
28x110x10=30800 / 6.1x20=122 so / 30800 divided by 122 = 252g hops So as you see i have got a large difference between wheeler & promash. Can someone try there promash with 110 litre at 28 ebu with 6.1% Hops and see if they can figure out what i have done wrong. As i can't see there being such a large difference between wheeler & promash. Cheers

[deadlydes]

i get 154g of 6.1% hops for 28.1IBU for 90mins boil
so thats the same as your promash

[bitter_dave]

IIRR Wheeler expects a hop utilisation of 20% and promash 27% (or thereabouts depending on the measure used). When I've put Wheeler's recipes in Promash, adjusting for alpha acids etc, they come out with higher IBUs than the ones he published.

[steve_flack]

IIRR Wheeler expects a hop utilisation of 20% and promash 27%

I doubt it. Depending upon the method used the utilisation varies with beer gravity. I'm pretty certain Promash uses Tinseth by default as it's method and that definitely doesn't have a fixed utilisation rate.

[bitter_dave]

IIRR Wheeler expects a hop utilisation of 20% and promash 27%

I doubt it. Depending upon the method used the utilisation varies with beer gravity. I'm pretty certain Promash uses Tinseth by default as it's method and that definitely doesn't have a fixed utilisation rate.

Fair enough. Wheeler claims to use a hop utilisation of 20%, and the formula in his books are based on this assumption.

Having just checked Ray Daniels book, he gives a rough utilisation of 27% over a boil of 75+ mins (page 80), which must be where I got the 27% from. In any case, I suspect that Wheeler was a more conservative about utilisation than promash, which is why I tend to get higher IBU figures when I put wheeler's recipes in promash.

I don't claim to know very much about the subject though, so I'm probably not the best person to be talking about such things

[mysterio]

I don't think promash uses Tinseth - that's what Beersmith uses and it gives different IBU results than promash.

Anyway, when I was using Promash I thought it's calculation left my beer lacking in hop bitterness. Beersmith comes closer IMO, but it depends on your system I imagine.

I would try changing the Promash bitterness calculation to Tinseth if it lets you.

[Andy]

I don't think promash uses Tinseth - that's what Beersmith uses and it gives different IBU results than promash.

Anyway, when I was using Promash I thought it's calculation left my beer lacking in hop bitterness. Beersmith comes closer IMO, but it depends on your system I imagine.

I would try changing the Promash bitterness calculation to Tinseth if it lets you.

Promash supports multiple calcs, Tinseth being one of them.

<rant>What's the point of having an international "standard" if there are loads of different methods of calculating the value and they're all different.... </rant>

[steve_flack]

Some people find some formulas work better for certain situations and size of equipment. Tinseth seems to be the most popular choice for most normal strength beers on a homebrew scale.

[guildofevil]

Promash defaults to Rager but can be set to Rager, Tinseth, Garetz, or Generic.

There is an entry about this here: http://www.promash.com/FAQ/faq_diff.html

Séan

[RabMaxwell]

Hello all just been searching through Promash & found where to change it. There is Rager, Garetz,Tinseth, or Generic . Mine has been on Rager think i try to get back closer to wheelers figures. So when using a Beer Engine & tight sparkler that knocks some bitterness and flavour out whose calculations would i be best to use. Cheers

[RabMaxwell]

While tinkering i am now getting the exact wheeler calculation of 252g Challenger from setting it to Garetz they must use the same calculations. Cheers

[bitter_dave]

While tinkering i am now getting the exact wheeler calculation of 252g Challenger from setting it to Garetz they must use the same calculations. Cheers

That's interesting Rab, thanks, may have to have a look at that

[RabMaxwell]

Hello bitter_dave just checked again i am getting 28 ebu with a 60 min boil / 32.1 with 90 min boil. I normally do a 60 min boil so he seems closest to wheeler.Better go and start crushing grain for tomorrow. Cheers