BeerSmith versus Brewer's Friend recipe discrepancy?

[brewkinger]

I have been brewing AG for a couple of years now with 2-3 extract batches prior to that.



I have used BS for the last couple of years and fine tuned it according to my processes and have learned to trust it (for the most part)



Earlier this year, I dove into the abyss that is "water chemistry" and used Brewers Friend on a couple of occasions to calculate water chemistry stuff.

(I have since switched to Brun Water for water profiling, but that is not pertinent here)



I have a friend coming up this weekend for LTHD on Saturday and gonna do a simple extract batch with some steeping grains to show him the ropes.



So I started out by building an extract recipe in BeerSmith... which made me notice some things that I had not before because I always use BS for all grain recipes.

In the design page, there is not an option for Extract w/ Steeping.



Recipe is:

7.4# Pilsen light LME

0.5# Carahell (12L)

0.5# CaraRed (23L)



1 oz Simcoe pellets 13.2%



0.25 oz each (0.5 total oz) of Amarillo 8.8% pellets and Centennial 10.7%

at 20min, 15min, 10min and 5 min



1 oz Amarillo leaf for 7 day dry hop



When I enter this into BS, it gives me an OG of 1.047



On a whim today, I entered the exact same recipe into Brewers Friend and got an expected OG of 1.056

Noticed that there is an option to enter an efficiency value (they recommend 25% to start) for the steeping grains.



So what gives here?



I realize that the sugar contribution is negligible and mostly for color and flavor in an extract batch but, does BS not calculate any additional sugar contributions from the steeping grains?



The IBU calcualtions also seemed to be off as well (i did come across some other threads with this topic)

BS says this recipe is 71.9 IBU



BF says 86.8 IBU



Which one of these do I use?



My plan is to just brew the batch with LME only and see how it turns out for OG. If need be, I will add some light DME to bump the gravity up into the mid 1.050's just for peace of mind and good final ABV.



I was mostly just curious if I was missing something in BeerSmith with regards to extract with steeping grains (it seems that somewhere in BS, I remember seeing a place to choose steeping grains)

 

[jbaysurfer]

I wouldn't count on ANY sugar contributions from your steeping grains unless you've got base grain in the grist (which means you're doing a mini-mash, not steeping) and you leave it in conversion temp range for a period of time. Not even 25% You need base grains to get the enzymes required for conversion of your specialty grains, so they aren't contributing fermentables in a typical steeping setup.

On IBUs, I don't know about that. But BS is very rich and you may have utilization numbers set up differently in the two softwares. I've never used your other software btw, so I can't comment on specific differences.

 

[LLBeanJ]

For the IBUs, could it be that one uses Rager and the other uses Tinseth? I believe BS uses Tinseth by default, but I'm not positive there. Not sure which BF uses. The Rager formula will yield more IBUs than Tinseth from the same hops, so maybe BS is set to Tinseth and BF is set to Rager.

 

[Yooper]

I use both Brewer's Friend, because I like the cloud syncing so I can do it as I go, and beersmith because I like it for recipes.

I just put 7.64 pounds of LME into Beersmith, just that, as an extract batch of 5 gallons and got an OG of 1.052. Do you have the batch size as 5.5 gallons, or 5? And in both? Then I added .5 pound of both grains, and got an OG of 1.053. I guess they only gave one point for the grains, but I think that's realistic from what I remember from extract brewing and a 5 gallon batch.

My IBUs always match up within 5 IBUs, so that must be something in settings.

 

[brewkinger]

I use both Brewer's Friend, because I like the cloud syncing so I can do it as I go, and beersmith because I like it for recipes.

I just put 7.64 pounds of LME into Beersmith, just that, as an extract batch of 5 gallons and got an OG of 1.052. Do you have the batch size as 5.5 gallons, or 5? And in both? Then I added .5 pound of both grains, and got an OG of 1.053. I guess they only gave one point for the grains, but I think that's realistic from what I remember from extract brewing and a 5 gallon batch.

My IBUs always match up within 5 IBUs, so that must be something in settings.

I went back in and checked everything in Beersmith.

Corrections.... instead of 7.64# of LME, it should be 7.4# (7lbs 6.4oz)

The batch size was correct at 5 gallons, BUT the equipment profile was set to the profile that I use for AG brewing, so there was losses to the tun that I will not be having with an extract brew.
I created a new extract profile using my 11 gallon kettle and only evaporation and kettle loss to trub.

That gave me 1.052 (with the grains included).

As far as the IBU calculations go, I am not going to worry too much about them. Either way, the IBU level in this beer is going to be up in the 70-80 range and that is what we want.

Thanks everyone for pointing me in the right direction.

 

[brewfun]

Then I added .5 pound of both grains, and got an OG of 1.053. I guess they only gave one point for the grains., but I think that's realistic from what I remember from extract brewing and a 5 gallon batch.

BeerSmith's extract default is 15% for steeped grains. This is changeable in the Options menu.

My IBUs always match up within 5 IBUs, so that must be something in settings.

Which calculation is chosen AND the Hop Utilization factor found in the equipment profile are what determine the IBU prediction.

 

[brewkinger]

BeerSmith's extract default is 15% for steeped grains. This is changeable in the Options menu.







Which calculation is chosen AND the Hop Utilization factor found in the equipment profile are what determine the IBU prediction.

I will check out the options menu but my gut instinct is to leave it alone at 15% for now. I have not done extract brewing in a while, but I am thinking that I may do some more in the future. If I consistently got higher OG than expected I would consider upping that 15% to account for it.

I noticed the hop utilization in the equipment profile and it seems to default to 100% utilization.
Is this accurate? Do we get 100% utilization?


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