All Extract Brewing - Coopers Kits

[danielrose]

Hello,
I am not sure this is the right forum to post in, so my apologies if it is not.
Beersmith looks like a great tool, and I think it will suit me as a tool to record brews & develop recipes, but I am having trouble with creating recipes that use the Coopers kits.
Basically, I downloaded the Coopers Extracts "Add-on", which gives me all the extract kits as ingredients. The problem is that when I create a recipe using these, the IBU & EBC are all vastly incorrect. Is there an easy way to use this extract kit add on so that the IBU and EBC figures are correct?

 

[Rusty Nails]

Color and bitterness are best measured in a lab. Since most homebrewers don't wish to pay that expense, software tries to predict the color and bitterness. The problem is, there are a number of different calculations that are used that will give you different results. You will find arguments here on those different formulas, but the truth is, they are all just reference numbers.
Enter your kit, or the recipe from a book, as it was written. Make a note of the differences between what the kit (book) gives as IBU EBC (SRM) and what the software tells you. Brew the kit. Don't worry, the software being off a little will not change your beer. As you brew more beers, you will start to automatically correct for the error in the software.
It would be nice if the software were correct, but no software can do this when color and bitterness are based on variables controlled by nature. My LHBS buys from the hop farmers, and the same hop from the same crop will vary depending on which farm it comes from.

Pro brewers will check a malt sheet on every shipment, and also check the hop data for every shipment. Imagine how hard it is for the industrial brewers to create a beer that always tastes the same when the very foundation of that beer, malt and hops, keeps changing based on everything nature can do to make things vary. All of these things vary, so no software can predict the result and be correct.
I would assume a brewery like Cooper's has had lab tests done and that is reflected in their kits.

I find this to be the fun part of homebrewing. To take what Mother Nature throws at you and create a great beer out of it.

RDWHAHB

Ed

 

[danielrose]

Thanks for the quick reply. I know the numbers won't ever be accurate, but I was hoping for somewhere in the ballpark/suburb/state
With the default coopers addon, using 1.7kg of Coopers Extract it estimates the finished IBU to be over 360, and the EBC to be over 65 which just makes no sense.
I think the problem is the Coopers Addon has the wrong IBU/EBC values for the volume...
Cheers