frankvw
Well-Known Member
After having used Qbrew for many years, I'm now looking at Brewtarget and Beersmith as well. I'm in the process of working out The Ultimate Belgian Dubbel Recipe (yeah right) and decided to give all three of them a spin. The results were wildly different.
So I decided to make a simple test recipe and plug it into Qbrew, Brewtarget and Beersmith 3, using the same parameters as much as possible to eliminate differences in the ingredients databases.
The recipe
And this is from the simplest of recipes. With more ingredients the discrepancies only increase further and further. Why is that?
Is there anyone who has used more than one of the above and can give me a pointer on which is the more accurate and why?
So I decided to make a simple test recipe and plug it into Qbrew, Brewtarget and Beersmith 3, using the same parameters as much as possible to eliminate differences in the ingredients databases.
The recipe
- Target batch size: 20L post-boil (not counting losses in the trub, fermenter, etc.)
- Fermentables: 4kg German Pilsener, yield 1.038 / 79%, 2.0°. SRM
- Hops: 28g Cascade 6.5%AA boiled for 60 min.
- Yeast: S05
- Brewhouse efficiency: 70%
- Boiling point: 100°C (i.e. at sea level; no boil altitude / hop utilization adjustment)
- Color estimate: According to Morey
- Bitterness estimate: According to Tinseth
- Qbrew: OG=1.044, FG=1.011, IBU=22, Color=3° SRM
- BrewTarget: OG=1.044, FG=1,008, IBU=24.4, Color=3.4° SRM
- Beersmith 3: OG=1.046, FG=1.010, IBU=22.6, Color=3.1° SRM
And this is from the simplest of recipes. With more ingredients the discrepancies only increase further and further. Why is that?
Is there anyone who has used more than one of the above and can give me a pointer on which is the more accurate and why?