IBUseless

[GuingesRock]

I don’t get the point of calculated IBUs. I’m sure someone will straighten me out But!...

It’s the perception of bitterness that’s important and not the calculated IBUs which seem to have little relation to the taste.

I can see their use in the traditional brews with an hour (or so) long bitterness addition combined with late aroma additions. But with other hopping techniques thrown in the mix, I haven’t yet found a way of using them to predict bitterness outcome, and prefer to go more by experience of what a certain addition is likely to end up like.

FWH for example. There was a brew that I used to make a lot of, and it had one addition only, and it was 1lb of Styrian Goldings, all FWH, in a 10 gal batch. Now according to BS that should have given me enough IBUs to blow my head off (around 140 IBUs), but it had a very pleasant bitterness and seemed to me to be around 35 of 40 IBUs. FWH additions when measured produce 10% more IBUs than the same amount of hops boiled for 1 hour, but the perceived bitterness is said to be about the same as if they had been a 20 min late addition. IBU calculations take no account of perceived bitterness or the character of the bitterness. I think similar things come into play with brews that have massive late additions only, but to a lesser extent.

Lately I have been skimming the hot break starting just before the boil is reached and continuing through the boil. The initial skim just before the boiling point is reached removes all of the FWH hops as they are all on the surface at that point. I like the results I get from doing that, but I haven’t got a hope in hell of trying to calculate the actual IBUs, or estimate the perceived IBUs, when I do that, and I can only go by taste and experience. The previously mentioned 1lb SG FWH brew wasn't skimmed.

Then there are whirlpool additions and hop stands. Beersmith is attempting to calculate these now. It does this by saying those additions produce approximately half the IBU contribution of similar boil time hops based on a steep/whirlpool temperature of 90 C. Not much use to me either. I cool my wort to 175F before I do my hop stand, but at that temperature I’m getting very little isomerization so I suppose I can just ignore any potential bitterness from such an addition.

I’m not finding “calculated IBUs” much use these days. It’s the perceived IBUs that will be judged, by the drinkers of the beer and the judges at competitions.

[GAM]

Yes. Kind of. If you just use IBU's and not taste buds you can make some bad tasting beer IMO.

IBU's allow you to formulate a balance for the beer. They don't really do a good job of allowing for late additions or Dry hoping.

Again IMO.

Sandy

[GuingesRock]

Rager versus Tinseth

It is often said that the Rager IBU estimation formula (as used in BCS) works better for extract and that Tinseth works better for all-grain. I have never seen anything written on why though. Here is what I suspect...

Rager tends to give a higher value than Tinseth on almost all recipes and, if you stop and think about the difference between an extract and all-grain brew, there actually should be a big difference in hop utilisation. Extract brews are much cleaner boils than all-grains. In our all-grain brews we have a lot of solids that hop compounds can attach to and be pulled out of the wort. In other words, any extract recipe we are asked to brew as all-grain, we should be using more hops.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the last sentence above is absolutely correct and there could be a very big difference in hop utilisation - possibly 25-30%.

Anyway, many of you know here already that all of the hop estimate formulas are very primitive. The above though adds yet another layer of primitiveness I never thought of before.
http://www.biabrewer.info/viewtopic.php ... =25#p32776" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You can choose which formula you want to use in BS, and you can also display the IBU results from different formulae in the "select fields" section. On one of my brews (Champagne Cascade Blonde with late additions only) Tinseth calculates 44.9 IBUs and Rager calculates 28.6 IBUs!

Interestingly for the FWH brew mentioned above (1lb SG FWH in 10 Gal) Tinseth calculates IBU to be 132 and Rager makes it 179.

[spears104]

Some good info in this thread about IBU calc's vs finished beer:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4334

[GuingesRock]

Some good info in this thread about IBU calc's vs finished beer:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4334

Thanks for the link. Some good information on that thread. eg.

I recently read Mitch Steele's IPA book. On pg 203 he mentions that all of the utilization calculations performed are for wort and that there can be as much as a 33% reduction in IBU's during fermentation. I had never seen this before in any other book that I read about doing the utilization calculations. Do you guys take this into account when reporting your estimated IBU's? Or take it into consideration when you are formulating a recipe? Or is it even true?

I thought the only way to get a real estimate was to sample and test. I was under the impression the calculations don't actually correlate with isomerized alpha acids. Then again from what I know, perceived bitterness is probably more then iso-alpha acid. I'm no chemist though, so take my ramblings as such.

I found the post below on there and I think it answers my remaining questions.

Yeast and trub both have considerably higher concentrations of iso-alpha acids than what is found in the wort or beer from which it was harvested. Acids are adsorbed by yeast. Products like Fermcap S help with higher BU efficiency rates during the boil and fermentation mostly by way of diminishing adsorption, and it really does work. The numbers we calculate as brewers (Pros at least) are meant to represent the finished product, not what we are dumping in the kettle.

Professional brewers that don't have the means for IBU testing generally estimate by taste, adulterating software and calculations to more accurately represent what they taste in the finished product. Brewer X and Brewer Y may use the same software, the same recipe et al but the resulting beers could be dramatically different in actual BUs. Different systems, brewing style, heat sources etc can have a HUGE effect on final BU count. I recommend everyone taste your own beers against known samples that have been tested, Central City tests all their beers along with most all the larger craft breweries. Grab a red Racer IPA (assuming they list the BUs somewhere), take a gravity sample, this will give you the OG as per listed ABV. Brew an IPA to match the numbers then do a side by side taste comparison and you'll get a pretty good idea of how close (or not) your BU calculations are. Of course it's important that the OG/FG are bang-on so sugars don't interfere with your perception. Water salts can have an effect as well but that's a whole other ballgame. None of the local breweries here actually test theirs to the best of my knowledge.

[GuingesRock]

As mentioned, I go by taste more that calculated. Especially with FWH. I skim my FWH just before he boil so I decided to enter my FWH hops as a 10 min FWH addition, reasoning ...by skimming before the boil I'm maybe reducing the FWH bitterness by 50%. I'm more interested in perceived bitternesss than actual IBUs and FWH is supposed to give the perceived bitterness of a 20 min addition.

I don't understand why the IBUs in the column beside the hops don't add up to the total shown below in BS. Probably a stupid question but it's the same in all my recipes. In the example below the IBUs in the column beside the hops add up to about 40 but the total shown below in the sliders is 57.8. My hop utilisation is set to 100%.

[AllanMar]

I've never heard of skimming FWH, I'd say any calculation there would be even more useless
EDIT: If your skimming FWH before the boil, it would probably make more sense to enter it as a steep? As the way you have it entered now would be 10min boil IBU + 10% (for FWH)

I've never seen them not add up. Export the recipe and post that. It's also odd to sort by name, if you sort by # all the grains will be togther/etc which makes it easier to read.

[GuingesRock]

[AllanMar]

Are you using an older version of BeerSmith? They add up when I open it.

Either that or you have something modified in the options that's causing something strange...

[GuingesRock]

Ah ha thanks! It's a problem with my BS. It's the latest 2.2. Maybe it's a setting somewhere.

Edit ...still not solved In my BS the IBUs in the column beside the hops are showing too low and don't add up to the total at the bottom, but the total at the bottom is the same as your total. The column does add up to the total when opened in your BS, but not in mine.

Edit: It's not just me: http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/41848 ... -going-on/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[GuingesRock]

I solved this one. If you add (IBUs Rager) in the select fields section you can view Rager there, but it changes the IBU values in the IBU column. As soon as I removed Rager from the select fields section the columns added up to the total tinseth below. When you have rager in the select fields section, for some unknown reason it changes the column IBUs to Rager but still keeps the total below in Tinseth.

Thanks for the help with that Allan.

[AllanMar]

I solved this one. If you add (IBUs Rager) in the select fields section you can view Rager there, but it changes the IBU values in the IBU column. As soon as I removed Rager from the select fields section the columns added up to the total tinseth below. When you have rager in the select fields section, for some unknown reason it changes the column IBUs to Rager but still keeps the total below in Tinseth.

Thanks for the help with that Allan.

That is odd, good to know tho.

Thanks & No problem.

Are you actually using that much Whirlfloc/yeast or is that just a BS scaling thing?

[GuingesRock]

2 whirfloc tablets for 12 Gal batch. Trying 4 packs of yeast, used to use 3, to see if I notice a difference.

[GuingesRock]

I've never heard of skimming FWH, I'd say any calculation there would be even more useless .

Lots of things I do are unheard of. I like to muck around and try different things. The theory behind FWH is that volatiles are oxidised by the process and remain in solution and thus are not lost during the boil. I figured that by the time the boil is approaching that work has been done and I have what I need in solution. By skimming them off just as the boil approaches, I’m more than likely loosing some bitterness, but it allows me to have much larger FWH additions without paying the price of excessive bitterness. I tried it and liked the results, so for now I’ll keep doing that, unless I come up with another idea to keep myself amused.

And Yes …it makes calculations even more difficult, but I still find the calculations useful when designing beers and adapt them to my needs, so I guess they aren’t entirely useless. I was trying to provoke a discussion and get my head around them a bit more.

[AllanMar]

Isn't what your doing more of a steep addition then FWH tho? I'm all for doing whatever the hell you want (even if its not the norm), that is the reason I got in to homebrew, but that seems like a waste to skim them off. I would think you'd be better off doing a steep at the end of boil with a smaller amount?

I agree IBU's arn't the whole story, but as you mention they do have a place even if X IBU's doesn't always taste the same but I wouldn't say they're totally useless.

[GuingesRock]

Good question re. skimmed FWH vs. Steep after the boil at around 148F (FWH temperature), According to Nash (and also the Heady Topper guy in his video) you want to get on and cool ASAP after the boil, otherwise you lose too many precious volatiles from your late/flameout etc. additions. Greg Nash doesn’t even recommend hop stands for that reason and he sees no advantage to them. In his recent comment that was posted he said throw in the whirlpool hops around 180F and get right on with cooling.

[AllanMar]

Good question re. skimmed FWH vs. Steep after the boil at around 148F (FWH temperature), According to Nash (and also the Heady Topper guy in his video) you want to get on and cool ASAP after the boil, otherwise you lose too many precious volatiles from your late/flameout etc. additions. Greg Nash doesn’t even recommend hop stands for that reason and he sees no advantage to them. In his recent comment that was posted he said throw in the whirlpool hops around 180F and get right on with cooling.

I believe he also said don't bother with skimming.... haha

[NASH]

Good question re. skimmed FWH vs. Steep after the boil at around 148F (FWH temperature), According to Nash (and also the Heady Topper guy in his video) you want to get on and cool ASAP after the boil, otherwise you lose too many precious volatiles from your late/flameout etc. additions. Greg Nash doesn’t even recommend hop stands for that reason and he sees no advantage to them. In his recent comment that was posted he said throw in the whirlpool hops around 180F and get right on with cooling.

I don't see how there's any way possible that you're picking up 50% of possible IBUs from a fwh addition without boiling. I don't care what Beersmith says either

If you're skimming the hops out I'd agree you'd be better off calculation wise to use the steep addition calculation. That said, I likely wouldn't calculate it at all

Why don't you make a beer with only steeped hops to the tune of about 40 BU as a test? I'm thinking the result will be a sweet unbalanced mess of a beer.

I didn't mean you should throw whirlpool hops in at 180 F. Throw whirlpool hops into the whirlpool if that's what you're doing. If you intend to do a 'hopstand', I suggest NOT doing it. Instead, as you're chilling the wort add those 'hopstand' hops when the wort gets down to 180 F or so. Don't stop cooling. The hops will get plenty of a steep time between 180 and 140 as the temp drops. IMO hopstands are farking ridiculous unless you like wasting time and volatiles. A 5 or 10 minute steep through the temp zone will 'cook' the hops and take the edge off.

http://www.brewnosers.org/forums/viewto ... hops#p5982" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[GuingesRock]

Good question re. skimmed FWH vs. Steep after the boil at around 148F (FWH temperature), According to Nash (and also the Heady Topper guy in his video) you want to get on and cool ASAP after the boil, otherwise you lose too many precious volatiles from your late/flameout etc. additions. Greg Nash doesn’t even recommend hop stands for that reason and he sees no advantage to them. In his recent comment that was posted he said throw in the whirlpool hops around 180F and get right on with cooling.

I don't see how there's any way possible that you're picking up 50% of possible IBUs from a fwh addition without boiling. I don't care what Beersmith says either

If you're skimming the hops out I'd agree you'd be better off calculation wise to use the steep addition calculation. That said, I likely wouldn't calculate it at all

Why don't you make a beer with only steeped hops to the tune of about 40 BU as a test? I'm thinking the result will be a sweet unbalanced mess of a beer.

I didn't mean you should throw whirlpool hops in at 180 F. Throw whirlpool hops into the whirlpool if that's what you're doing. If you intend to do a 'hopstand', I suggest NOT doing it. Instead, as you're chilling the wort add those 'hopstand' hops when the wort gets down to 180 F or so. Don't stop cooling. The hops will get plenty of a steep time between 180 and 140 as the temp drops. IMO hopstands are farking ridiculous unless you like wasting time and volatiles. A 5 or 10 minute steep through the temp zone will 'cook' the hops and take the edge off.

http://www.brewnosers.org/forums/viewto ... hops#p5982" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks and sorry if I misrepresented what you said.

An important question for me, that I don't know the answer to is: When I am putting hops in the wort at 145F and increasing the temperature to let's say 205F over possibly 2 hours are alpha acids coming out of the hops and dissolving in the wort? if so, would you hazard a guess at what percentage please. I'm guessing from what you say that you are going to say a small amount. if so, why is that? Why does it need a boil to get the alpha acids out of the hops. I don't understand that.

If the alpha acids are going into solution then they can then isomerize during the boil?

Also would you see what you think of the bitterness in the IPA I left at Jeff's please. I appreciate your help with this. Theory is all well and good but the end result is the thing. If you say it's no good then that'll be all the evidence I need. You did taste one done like this before. The Big Spruce entry that wasn't hop forward enough (not dry hopped).

Thanks

[NASH]

I went to brewing school a long time ago and there's been plenty of advances since then but....

I don't think there's been much change in analysis of alpha acid in solution in the finished product since then.

I was taught that isomerization basically doesn't happen much at all without a physical rolling boil. As that happens the acids slowly begin dissolving into the wort. I do not take flame-out hops, whirlpool hops, steep hops, stand hops, dry hops etc into account for any IBU calculations, neither does ProMash. Also, I mostly ignore IBU calcs coming from hops added during the last 5 - 10 mins of the boil before flame-out. Also, ProMash calculates FWH to offer up ~ 10% or so less IBU potential than 60 - 90 minute boil hops. I think I've seen you guys mention that BeerSmith lists them as opposite to that, 10 - 20% more utilization. Obviously there's some huge differences in the ideas behind the software. ProMash and my calculations work well for me, so I stick with that approach.

I'll let you know about your beer when it makes its way to me

[mr x]

FWIW, I find Beersmith's estimates of IBUS from 15 minutes to FO to be way off on the low side...

[NASH]

Weird.

Transmitted from the Hop-phone.

[GuingesRock]

I'll let you know about your beer when it makes its way to me

An IBU geusstimate would really help me with my confusion over IBUs, if you think of it at the time.

Thanks a lot.

[GuingesRock]

I was taught that isomerization basically doesn't happen much at all without a physical rolling boil. As that happens the acids slowly begin dissolving into the wort.

I was doing some more reading and I'm getting the impression that the alpha acids are insoluble and the iso-alpha acids are soluble. Which would explain what you say that they don't go into solution until they are isomerized by the boil. If that's true and if it is true that isomerization at 90C is occurring at approx. 50% rate of a boil, then I'm utilizing the lower rate of isomerization that's occurring pre-boil. I may be in the reduced isomerization range for 30 - 60 mins before scooping out the hops, thus getting some bitterness from them, and I think I'm still getting the flavours from the FWH.

Does that seem plausible?

http://beer.suregork.com/?m=201207" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[NASH]

I was taught that isomerization basically doesn't happen much at all without a physical rolling boil. As that happens the acids slowly begin dissolving into the wort.

I was doing some more reading and I'm getting the impression that the alpha acids are insoluble and the iso-alpha acids are soluble. Which would explain what you say that they don't go into solution until they are isomerized by the boil. If that's true and if it is true that isomerization at 90C is occurring at approx. 50% rate of a boil, then I'm utilizing the lower rate of isomerization that's occurring pre-boil. I may be in the reduced isomerization range for 30 - 60 mins before scooping out the hops, thus getting some bitterness from them, and I think I'm still getting the flavours from the FWH.

Does that seem plausible?

http://beer.suregork.com/?m=201207" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That's exactly what my statement stated. You isomerize to then dissolve. And yes you get some isomerization without a boil but not much. I call 50% fucking bullshit unless those IBUs are magic and we can't detect them via human palate

Like I said, those don't even make it into mine or Promash calcs, we both do just fine making our beers.

Of course you still get flavour from FWH, the oils have dissolved into solution and become one with the wort.