Hop Price in BeerSmith

[eviljafar]

Hi all.

I recently bought BeerSmith and I really like it. I'm still getting used to it but there's one thing I'm having trouble with. I like using metric and I would like to have hop units set in metric. The shop I often buy hops from sell hops per 28g (1oz = 28.3g). If I go to Tools|Options|Units|Hops and set to grams it becomes difficult to set prices and calculate costs. It seems the hop price is then set per 100g. To get a price per 28g and get a correct cost I have to do some calculations myself. For example if I bought 28g for $1.29, in the hop type I have to set the price to $4.60 ($1.29/28*100) which is a bit of a hassle.

The easy work around is just to uses ounces, which isn't too much of a problem I guess, but it would be nice if it worked a little easier in metric. I've tried going to Tools|Options|Units and changing the purchase increment but that didn't work. Is there any way I can set the price unit for hops to per 28g? Maybe there is and I just can't find it?

Thanks, Jaf.

PS in the hop window the price is expressed as $/cg which is incorrect. cg is centigram, ie 1/100th of a gram (0.01 grams). 100 grams is a hectogram, hg.

[BeerSmith]

Jaf,
  You are correct - I probably need to have some better options.  The cg comment is spot on - I need to change that in the next version.

  In what quantity are your hops sold locally?  Obviously here we purchase in ounces, but I was not sure whether others purchased in grams, 25 g, 100g, or smaller packets?

   One tip I can provide however - you can enter calculations directly into BeerSmith if you like, so entering (1.29/28*100) directly into the price field will calculate the correct price for you.  You can do simple math in any field.

Cheers!
Brad Smith

[eviljafar]

Hi Brad, thanks for your reply.

First let me congratulate you on a great program. I made my first AG only a couple of days ago. While working out my recipe, just being able to change my grain bill and have have my mash and sparge volumes recalculate automatically made it worth my $20, let alone all the other great features. I also read elsewhere that you regularly participate in the the BeerSmith forum and seem very interested in responding to comments and improving the program. Beersmith is often recommended at the homebrewtalk.com forum which is where I heard about it.

I've just moved from Melbourne Australia to Montreal so I'm not really an authority as to what the common way to buy hops here is. My LHBS sells in 28g packs, but I just had a look around some other Canadian homebrew supply websites and most seem to sell in ounces. Canada uses the metric system as does Australia, but I wonder if hop weight is one of those things that still hangs on to the imperial system. In Australia I always bought hops by the ounce even though I bought other ingredients by the kilogram. Other things in Australia like the length of a surfboard or a sail boat were usually expressed in feet or feet and inches. People just seem to be more comfortable using the imperial system for some things.

That's great about being able to add a formula to the price and other fields. I think the easiest thing for me though is to just use ounces for hop weight. As I said I'm used to that anyway, even though I hate trying to use gallons and pounds. As to what is a common metric weight to buy hops I can't help you much there. Everywhere I've been or looked at on the web, except for my LHBS, is in ounces.

My opinion on how to improve the program to resolve this is to add the ability to choose the price per weight ratio. So if the user wants to specify $/28g, $/100g, $/kg etc he could. I'm not really sure if this is worth a lot of effort though, especially if other more valuable feature requests are still pending. And as far as I know my LHBS might be the only place in the world that sells metric quantities of hops anyway.

Cheers, Jaf.

[Mr. P]

  In what quantity are your hops sold locally?  Obviously here we purchase in ounces, but I was not sure whether others purchased in grams, 25 g, 100g, or smaller packets?

Here in Denmark we buy hops in 100g packets.

[denimglen]

Here in New Zealand AFAIK hops are usually sold in increments of 50grams.

[deerelk4x4]

My LHBS sells the hops in vacuum packed 2 oz packages.  This gets interesting when the price is $2.25 as the divided cost is not represented correctly in the new version.  May allow for the home brewer to choose not only measurement, but also purchase size.

[BeerSmith]

Hi,
  I agree with all of the comments.  I need to add an option to specify preferred quantity for items to be used with pricing data in the next version.

  In the meantime, the best workaround is to use the calculator option built into every field - you can enter 1.29/28*100 directly into the field, for example.

Cheers!
Brad