Enter fermentable by percentage?

[Kerrydan]

Hi! I'm new to BeerSmith Mobile 3, on Android. When I add a new fermentable to a recipe, I can only enter the amount of the ingredient by weight. Is there a way to enter it by percentage and have the software calculate the weight required based on the OG specified?

[BOB357]

The best way I've found is to enter the % as part of a pound. (12% = .12 lb.) Once you have all of the fermentables entered, click on the OG slider and enter your desired gravity in the popup window.

[brewfun]

The best way I've found is to enter the % as part of a pound. (12% = .12 lb.) Once you have all of the fermentables entered, click on the OG slider and enter your desired gravity in the popup window.

Genius solution!

[BOB357]

Just a simple solution for my rapidly aging simple mind.

[Kerrydan]

The best way I've found is to enter the % as part of a pound. (12% = .12 lb.) Once you have all of the fermentables entered, click on the OG slider and enter your desired gravity in the popup window.

Thank you Bob! Great solution, until Brad adds the feature.

[BOB357]

Have you seen any brewing software that fully implements that feature?

[Kerrydan]

Depends on your definition of "fully", I guess. The only two brewing software I have as comparison are BeerSmith on desktop, and Brewer's Friend. I know that both allow me to enter a percentage for fermentables, as well as weight.

I sometimes see beer recipe grain bills expressed as percentages (for instance, in "Brew Like a Monk", which I recently read), so being new to brewing I assumed that was normal. Is it?

[BOB357]

By fully implementing, I mean you can enter the percentages, specify the desired OG and the software does the rest.

I've been using BeerSmith desktop since ver. 1.xx and never found a way to directly add percentages of fermentables. How would you go about that?

[Kerrydan]

I've been using BeerSmith desktop since ver. 1.xx and never found a way to directly add percentages of fermentables. How would you go about that?

https://youtu.be/6nJ4bf5xQuc

[Kevin58]

Depends on your definition of "fully", I guess. The only two brewing software I have as comparison are BeerSmith on desktop, and Brewer's Friend. I know that both allow me to enter a percentage for fermentables, as well as weight.

I sometimes see beer recipe grain bills expressed as percentages (for instance, in "Brew Like a Monk", which I recently read), so being new to brewing I assumed that was normal. Is it?

If you were to ask a professional brewer for a recipe he/she would probably give it to you in percentages. That's because every brew system has a different efficiency. By using percentages and knowing the OG you can calculate the amounts of grain that work for your personal system. So is it normal? Yes and no. Pro brewers are more likely to do so but homebrewers tend to give us their recipe in amounts of grain and ...hopefully... will also give you their efficiency. When I share a recipe I try to list both amounts and percentage.

For the record, Beersmith 3 does list the percentage of each fermentable. I never thought of BOB357's solution (duh) so what I have always done when I have percentages but no weights is just enter 1 pound of each of the fermentables in the recipe and then use the % adjustment tool to get them to the proper ratio. Kind of clunky but it worked.

[bougie1st]

Just to add from someone using metric - I do the essentially the same thing. Add them as grams (0-100g = 0-100%), then adjust the slider

[BOB357]

I've been using BeerSmith desktop since ver. 1.xx and never found a way to directly add percentages of fermentables. How would you go about that?

https://youtu.be/6nJ4bf5xQuc

Thanks for the response.
 I thought for a minute I'd missed a feature. When using that tool you need to enter the fermentables first. Different than directly adding fermentables by %. I don't use it because I find my way to be faster. A single adjustment scales all of the fermentables rather than adjusting each one individually. I have used the tool to fine tune my existing recipes, and it works well for that.