Special Hops
Well-Known Member
True it used to be a decent computer program set you back 50-60 bucks at least. Now people ***** about an app every time it's more then 99cents.
Special Hops said:True it used to be a decent computer program set you back 50-60 bucks at least. Now people ***** about an app every time it's more then 99cents.
I have both iBrewMaster and Beersmith. Can anyone comment on the accuracy of the two programs? I find that if I enter the exact same recipe into both programs, I get different results. I understand that there will be slight differences in IBU's and SRM, however those two values are usually very very close, it's the OG that is usually off, often by about 4-5 gravity points. I've gone through and checked the equipment profiles for both programs and made sure they matched, and double checked the gravity contribution of the ingredients, along with any other settings that should create differences.
Each time I find that Beersmith requires less grain to get to the same OG. If no one else has experienced this, maybe I need to check again, but I thought I'd at least pose the question.
HopRodGR said:To simplify this to the greatest extent possible, I doubled checked my equipment profiles again in both Beersmith and iBrewMaster, which are the same. Just as an example, I entered one grain and one hop to see what would happen. I chose:
10lb Briess 2-Row Brewers Malt, Potential SG of 1.037, 1.8L
1oz Centennial 10% AA at 60 minutes
5.5 gallon batch, 75% efficiency
For comparison:
SRM: nearly equal, only 0.2 difference, so not material
IBU: nearly equal, only 0.9 difference using Tinseth, again, not material
Pre-Boil volume: equal, 7.25 for both
Estimated Original Gravity: Beersmith = 1.050, iBrewMaster = 1.046
Minor difference like 0.2 SRM and 1 IBU are really undetectable, so no big deal there. But the differences in OG from the same single grain is hard to figure out. Just for the hell of it I also punched this into BrewPal and got 1.050, 3.0SRM and 31 IBU.
Beersmith has always done me well so I always use it for my final recipes. I like iBrewMaster just to throw down a recipe when I'm not at my computer, but the difference in OG is really keeping me from using it to put together a final recipe, as I always adjust it in Beersmith before brewing. It's a nice program with some good features, but definitely, in my mind at least, far from a single solution if you are going to choose one piece of brewing software.
HopRodGR said:Very interesting. Only thing I can see that is different is the pre-boil volume. Mine is 7.25, but that includes a 0.50 gallon kettle trub loss, 1.00 gallon boil-off, and 0.25% cooling shrinkage to get to 5.50 gallons into the fermenter.
Somehow I can see this heading in the direction of me inputting something wrong, but I honestly can find what that is at the moment...
I get the same when I add the boil loss and kettle trub loss you have.
The lower OG is because the software assumes that you had 6 gallons of wort post boil then you left 0.5 gallons in the kettle taking only 5.5 gallons to the fermenter. So the OG prediction is based on the 6 gallon value because that is the volume which had the sugars evenly diluted in it. You have tole the software you are throwing away 0.5 gallons withs it's share of sugars. Hence the lower OG.
I set kettle trub loss at 0 because I pour everything from the kettle into my fermenter.
After playing with both software packages for the last half hour, my head now hurts. As an extreme example, I bumped up trub loss to 1.99 (the max) on both Beersmith and iBrewMaster. Beersmith says OG stays the same, 1.050, which can't be right if you are leaving that much wort behind. iBrewMaster dropped to 1.037, which seems right, since you are now using 10lbs of grain to get fermentable sugars into about 8.8 gallons of wort pre-boil, of which 1 gallon boils off and 2 are left behind. If you have trub loss, that wort post boil better be the OG you want going into your fermenter, so it now seems like the Beersmith calc is off. I can't get comfortable saying that though, since you have me (relatively new brewer) vs. Brad (writer of highly respected and widely used brewing software). Well, if someone can point out where I'm wrong here, please feel free to do so.
Ok, after a bit of digging, it appears this might be the issue I'm having with Beersmith. Looks like I'm not the only one who's experiencing this.
http://www.beersmith.com/forum/index.php/topic,4911.msg26898.html#msg26898
Hey guys!
I thought iBrewMaster should officially chime in here! Yes! It is because of the Kettle Trub Loss. It seems as though some other software has never taken this into consideration and many users tend to immediately believe that iBrewMaster is wrong because of their years of experience with those other apps! :-D But Kehaar hit the nail on the head! Your gravity isn't diluted just by the wort that you remove from the kettle of course, but is diluted by the entire kettle volume including what you left behind! We receive a lot of Q's in regard to this, and have an entry in our FAQ's about it, but here's a detailed description of the issue that explains the calculations and the math behind them...no secrets there!! I hope it helps!
FAQ: Why did the OG calculations change in my recipes? They don't appear to be correct compared to other applications out there!
Answer: We corrected a minor bug with the OG calculations as we were originally calculating OG by not including the Kettle Trub Loss. Obviously, whatever is left in the Kettle has still diluted the fermentable sugars. So, if you had a recipe size of 5.00 gallons, but a Kettle Trub Loss of .25 gallons, we were only using the 5 gallons instead of 5.25. You can adjust what your Kettle Trub Loss is by changing it in the Setup → Mash / Eq Profiles, then use that profile for your recipe. So, if you dump the entire kettle into your primary, you would want it set to 0. (This should bring your calculations back to the original values you used to see.)
For the curious heres the formula:
currentGrainGravity = (grainAmount * ((grainSG 1) * 1000) * (Efficiency / 100)) / (recipeSize + defaultKettleLoss)
For each grain, you take the amount (in lbs) and multiply it by the number of gravity points for that grain, or SG. (The * 1000 is because a gravity of 1.037 would yield .037 after subtracting the 1, and we need to convert that to 37.) Then you multiply that by the efficiency. You need to divide that by the recipeSize including the Kettle Loss. So heres an example:
2 lbs of a 1.037 gravity grain, efficiency of 70% and with a recipeSize of 5.00 gallons and a Kettle Loss of .25 gallons
currentGrainGravity = (2 * ((1.037 1) * 1000) * (70 / 100)) / (5.00 + .25)
currentGrainGravity = (2 * (.037 * 1000) * .7) / 5.25
currentGrainGravity = (2 * 37 * .7) / 5.25
currentGrainGravity = 51.8 / 5.25
currentGrainGravity = 9.866
Now, lets look at it from a practical standpoint. If you get 37 gravity points per lb of grain per gallon of water, then 2 lbs would give us 74 points. However, we only have an efficiency of 70%, so you get 51.8 gravity points. But thats per gallon .if you have 5.25 gallons of wort in your kettle before you transfer 5 gallons to your primary, you need to divide the 51.8 gravity points by the entire 5.25 gallons, not 5 gallons as we ourselves were also originally doing. Therefore, you end up with 51.8 / 5.25 or 9.866 gravity point contribution from this one grain. Do this for every grain you have, and add em up.
The bottom line is that while iBrewMaster may have been showing you accurate OG calculations for your setup (assuming you dont have any Kettle Trub Loss), they were incorrect for those users who do have a Kettle Trub Loss. So all you have to do to correct it is to set your Kettle Trub Loss to 0 for the Mash / Eq Profile that you use for your recipe if you have none.
Cheers all!
No worries HopRod! We actively try to monitor forums and respond to user requests, feature updates, and appreciate constructive criticism. It's the only way to understand what users need and want, and we take iBrewMaster very seriously. I can't begin to tell you the features we have planned! It's just a matter of time and prioritizing them. Speaking of that...one of our top priorities is to expand on the yeast options. We're simply too thin there right now....we'll be putting in some yeast pitching calculators and allowing multiple yeast additions. I'm a bit thrown on tying it to the mash temperature, as the mashing would have taken place before the boil....I assume you meant the Primary temp!? That's a great idea to automatically populate it based on the primary temperature and still allow users to override it. In addition, we're investigating the effects of attenuation when using multiple strains. We're honestly not sure if the attenuation should be an average of the different yeast attenuations, or if it should be the highest. There's also no real way to know which yeast began propagation first or which is dominant. We've actually reached out to some of the yeast companies for some direction here!
In either case, thanks for the reply! Lots more planned!
Cheers!
Joe
Ah yes! I see your point regarding more / less fermentable sugars! I tend to enjoy more full bodied beers and base my mashing temps on this (depending on the style of course) to get more unfermentable sugars. But I agree...I've never seen any published formulas on this either....same as my Q regarding which attenuation to use when using multiple yeasts! Siebel Institute of Technology here I come! :-D
iBrewMaster said:Hey CBelli,
We respectfully disagree of course! We've had it challenged many times but it has always come down to user settings and not understanding their effects on the calculations. If you can provide actual details rather than just sightng other programs, we'd be glad to explain. If you've actually found an error, then we certainly want to fix it ASAP, so please feel free to send us the details and exports!
Cheers!
iBrewMaster, Inc.
iBrewMaster said:Hey CBelli,
We respectfully disagree of course! We've had it challenged many times but it has always come down to user settings and not understanding their effects on the calculations. If you can provide actual details rather than just sightng other programs, we'd be glad to explain. If you've actually found an error, then we certainly want to fix it ASAP, so please feel free to send us the details and exports!
Cheers!
iBrewMaster, Inc.
Hey CBelli,
We received your export. For the sake of other users, we'll summarize:
That equals an OG of 1.05589. Your recipe shows 1.056, which is 1.05589 rounded!
So, again…we've done this at least 2 dozen times for doubting users! Perhaps other apps have been off all along! :-D
Cheers!
Almost entirely the way it is for me, I don't use BeerSmith anymore, I carry around my iPad, and use ibrewmaster.
It's not that we are not as experienced or don't know what we're missing. I like having the inventory, the ability to design a recipe at a friends house, and email a recipe when I'm not at my computer.
I actually hate the new BeerSmith 2.0, the screen is almost too busy! There are some nice things about BeerSmith, but for me, they do to out weigh the perks of ibrewmaster for me.
I also like the fact that when I email the developer, which I have done several time, the average response time is less than 3 hours, and not a canned response like some grain mill manufacturers, but an actual answer.
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