Hi,
I received several versions of this via email, so I thought I would post it here...
Q. Why does BeerSmith come up with a lower bitterness value (in IBUs) than my other brewing program or web calculator??
A. There are two causes - First BeerSmith uses the Tinseth equation for calculating bitterness. A lot of other programs/calculators use the Rager method which gives a much higher bitterness value. However, most professional brewers believe the Tinseth method is the most accurate -- so that is why we use it as our default. You can change the method to Rager or Garetz using the Bitterness tab of the Options command on the Tools menu if you want to compare them.
A second cause is that many programs don't fully account for the lower hops utilization that comes from a concentrated boil. If you are boiling less than the entire batch (as is often done for extract brewing) your hop utilization can drop by as much as 50%. BeerSmith fully accounts for this while others don't.
For more information -- see the following FAQ
http://www.beersmith.com/bitterness_(ibus)_too_low.htm
Cheers!
Brad
I received several versions of this via email, so I thought I would post it here...
Q. Why does BeerSmith come up with a lower bitterness value (in IBUs) than my other brewing program or web calculator??
A. There are two causes - First BeerSmith uses the Tinseth equation for calculating bitterness. A lot of other programs/calculators use the Rager method which gives a much higher bitterness value. However, most professional brewers believe the Tinseth method is the most accurate -- so that is why we use it as our default. You can change the method to Rager or Garetz using the Bitterness tab of the Options command on the Tools menu if you want to compare them.
A second cause is that many programs don't fully account for the lower hops utilization that comes from a concentrated boil. If you are boiling less than the entire batch (as is often done for extract brewing) your hop utilization can drop by as much as 50%. BeerSmith fully accounts for this while others don't.
For more information -- see the following FAQ
http://www.beersmith.com/bitterness_(ibus)_too_low.htm
Cheers!
Brad