Adding Kits to BeerSmith

[hirns]

If I have a comercial kit's EBC, IBU and SRM is it possible to add the kit details into BeerSmith? I had a go but couldn't work out how add the IBU's onto the extract .

Hirns

[earle]

Hi Hirns

Near the bottom of the properties box for the extract there should be a bit about grams and alpha % of hops. I just adjust the grams until I get the right IBU.

However, there is also a tix box labelled 'Add after boil" which will affect your IBU from your kit once you add it to a recipe. I don't have that box ticked on any ingredient, so even if the IBU of the kit is right to start with, it will change once you add other malts and fermentables. So what I do is this
1. Add kit and all fermentables to recipe.
2. Adjust hop weight of kit as above to get IBU correct.
3. Add hop schedule and yeast.
4. Do smaller boil with same gravity as full recipe. e.g. 3kg malt/23L final volume x 5L boil would give you 650g malt in 5l boil.

Hope this helps.
Cheers

[hirns]

Thanks Earl,

I did it in another round about sort of way by adding the malt and then adding any bittering hops into the desired recipe(new strain, ie immaginary hops) into the recipe until I reached the reported 28 IBU of the kit.

I'm entering Boonies LCPA recipe

1 tin Morgans Stockmans Draught
1.5 kg of Morgans Extra Pale Malt Extract (Liquid)
15g of Cascade pellets - 15min
10g Cluster pellets - 15 min
US56 Yeast.
12g of Chinook Pellets (dry hopped at rack).

I ended up with 28.5 IBUs doing it your way and 29.3 doing it the way I described, not a huge difference.

However, I would have thought that I would need to select the add after the boil option as the hops are already in the kit, and this gives a IBU of 37.3. which would probably be more acurate to the real deal if Boonies recipe is as close as people say. Having said that I do get what you're saying with the IBUs changing depending on the fermentables added. The IBU"S then given for cans then, is this what you'd get with a kilo of sugar and 23 litres???

If anyone can help clarify this then it would be much apppreciated.

Hirns

[warra48]

The IBU"S then given for cans then, is this what you'd get with a kilo of sugar and 23 litres??? Hirns

Correct.

[hirns]

Thanks Warra,

But to tick or not to tick???

[earle]

To decide whether to tick or not you need to understand that your fermantables affect bitterness in two different ways.

1. IBU is a measure of concentration. You can have 2 brews with the same IBU which will have different bitterness to taste due to the amount of sweetness countering the IBUs. e.g. If you have 2 brews each of 30IBU, the one with more malt will taste less bitter because it has more malt sweetness. This bitterness/sweetness is part of whats referred to as balance and is something good to consider when you're planning a brew.

2. The amount of malt and fermentables in you hop boil affect the utilisation of you hops - basically more a higher concentration of fermentables in your boil means less bitterness units extracted from the hops. A lot of people suggest that if you do a small boil it should be similar to what a full boil would be in order to 'key in' your hops.

No. 2 is why you got the IBU results you did. If you have the kit ticked to add to boil you will get a lower hop utilisation and the lower IBU result. With the kit ticked for add after boil you get the higher result.

Some people tick, some don't. Whichever you do you need to make sure if you're doing a small boil it is the same gravity as the boil in beersmith. Two examples to explain based on 1.7kg kit and 1.5kg LME.

I have everything unticked so it is in the boil. So when I work out a boil of I take 3.2kg of fermentable into account.
3.2kg malt / 23L final volume x 5L boil = 696g malt in 5L boil

You might have kit ticked to add after boil and LME unitcked so it is in boil. You would need to take 1.5kg of fermentable into account. 1.5kg / 23L final volume x 5L boil = 326g malt in 5L boil

Hope this helps and hasn't confused the issue.

Cheers

[hirns]

Earle,

I understand, thanks sincerely for the clarication. I feel a hell of a lot more comfortable now knowing that I'll ket better use out of the program and more importantly, better beer!!!!

Thanks

Hirns

[warra48]

Top post, Earle.

Mods, should that be stickied?

[gregb]

Top post, Earle.

Mods, should that be stickied?

Yep.

[Oliver]

In BeerSmith 2 it doesn't look like you can do exactly what's described above, so here's how I approached it:

In the "Grain, Extract or Malt" popup from a recipe, or the Ingredients > Grain tab you can configure the bitterness of hopped extract.

However, the value has to be entered in "IBU-gal/lb", which is described as "IBU content for hopped extracts expressed as the number of IBUs in a pound of extract dissolved in a gallon of wort"

I couldn't be bothered thinking too hard about how to convert this to the 28.8 IBUs that I knew the 1.7kg tin of Coopers Lager concentrate that I wanted to enter contributed to 23 litres.

I'd already created the Coopers Lager concentrate as an ingredient, so I created a new 23-litre recipe and added only 1.7kg of Coopers Lager.

Then I adjusted the "IBU-gal/lb" figure until the bitterness came out at 28.8. The figure I had to put in was 46.7.

So I then adjusted the Coopers Lager ingredient to this value, so that I wouldn't have to do it all over again next time.

This is probably as clear as mud, so let me know if you've got any questions. Or you reckon my thinking is flawed

Cheers,

Oliver