Carbonation Estimate

I would really like the priming sugar calculations cleared up. Why doesn't the calculator take max temperature into account when calculating the priming sugar needed. I do understand the difference between the estimate and actual bottling sugar needed but that is useless to me. I always bottle and I add my sugar solution to the bottling bucket prior to siphoning the beer over to avoid any oxygen contamination of the beer. What doesn't make sense is no matter how I change fermentation temperature ramp the amount of sugar doesn't change even though the residual carbonation in the beer is drastically changed. That is simple physics. Can this please be explained?

I can explain how the program works but not why the fermentation profile and the carbonation profile are not linked. As you pointed out they could and probably should be.

The carbonation is set by the carbonation profile you choose.  Within that profile is the maximum temperature (actually just labeled "beer temperature", which is misleading).  When you add the carbonation profile to the recipe, it relies on this setting within the profile to set the carbonation level.  Which means that the user needs to edit the carbonation profile within the recipe to set the "beer temperature" to the max temperature in the fermentation profile.  It would probably be neater and cleaner to have the carbonation profile reset itself based upon the fermentation profile when added to the recipe.  The present set up of the program seems to be set up for very little interaction between the profiles in general, so I am not sure just how difficult it would be to make that adjustment

What I end up doing is waiting until I am ready to package my beer and then set the carbonation levels and method along with adjusting the temperature to reflect the highest temperature reached (since I do this at cold crash, I already know the highest temperature).  I can then make the appropriate changes on my brew day sheet and notes regarding actual conditions when I bottle or keg.

Thanks for the help. I didn't realize the "beer temp" in the carb. profile was the only setting that would adjust priming sugar according to residual carbonation. Not the smoothest but very usable now and it is the best software out there.

Unless you have precise temperature control for fermentation you likely don't know up front what the highest temperature the beer will  reach is. This means that a large percentage of homebrewers need to enter this number late in fermentation anyway. For them, the temperature in their fermentation profile doesn't mean squat. Not linking the fermentation profile to the carbonation profile may have been insightful and not a fail on Brad's part.

BOB357 said:

Unless you have precise temperature control for fermentation you likely don't know up front what the highest temperature the beer will  reach is. This means that a large percentage of homebrewers need to enter this number late in fermentation anyway. For them, the temperature in their fermentation profile doesn't mean squat. Not linking the fermentation profile to the carbonation profile may have been insightful and not a fail on Brad's part.

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Being old (crotchety) and pretty set (stubborn) in my lab rat days, I tend to lean more on my paper notes and just update the carbonation profile based upon my records.  Were the program to connect the two profiles together, I would spend more time updating the fermentation profile to be a more meaningful aspect of the software and not just a planning tool.