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Hops as AAUs instead of ounces + AA%

doldenburg

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It would be nice to be able to specify hop amounts as AAUs in recipes and in the shopping list, so that if I have a recipe that calls for 3 oz. 10% AA centennial, and another that calls for 1 oz. of 9.1% centinnial, for example, my shopping list can just say I need 39.1 AAU's of centennial.  Currently, it gives two separate entries for the two AA strengths.
 
I guess it would be possible, but AAU does depend on the batch size:

  AAU = (ounces x alpha %)/(volume gals)

Therefore ordering 39 AAU's does not make that much sense.

However, if you are talking about HBUs:
 
 HBU = (ounces x alpha %)

It makes a lot more sense.  Perhaps I could add this to the unit conversion functions --

  For example today you can enter "10 g" into a weight field and it will convert it to the current units (ounces for example).

 Perhaps in the future you might be able to type "10 hbu" into the amount field for hops and it would know to divide the amount in ounces by the alpha content to arrive at the needed amount.

 Interesting idea - and probably possible.

 What do you think?

Brad
 
You're right -- I meant HBUs.  I'm thinking that it would be even better if I could actually record the recipe as calling for X HBUs of hops, rather than having it do the conversion as I'm creating the recipe.

My thinking is that depending when you add the hops, you may be more concerned with amount of alpha acid or the weight of the hops.

For hops that boil, say, 60 minutes, all you really look at is the HBUs, and you really don't care at all how many ounces.  If you're dry hopping, the HBU's become similarly irrelevant.

Perhaps instead of a single "add hops" button in the recipe screen, there could be a one  that says "add bittering hops" and one that says "add flavoring hops." Bittering hops would be saved as HBU's, flavoring hops as ounces.  That or the add hops dialog box could allow you to specify whether you want the hops saved as ounces or HBUs.  

When you're entering the info for the bittering hops, you could enter "X ounces at Y% AA" and have the HBU calculation done on the fly as you're describing.
 
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