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mchrispen
Bastrop, TX
485 Posts


Hey guys,

Have had a rash of WTF emails accompanied with Bru'n Water Spreadsheets where the estimates were off. In each case, the malt color was incorrectly entered - using SRM as opposed to Lovibond. This is not such a big deal with pale beers, but the differences with darker crystal and roast malts is tremendous. You can also use EBC as opposed to L.

When the values were converted to L - the spreadsheet mash pH estimate was within 0.1 units accurate - usually closer to 0.02 units.

Just a gentle reminder... BeerSmith uses SRM in the recipe builder.




Posted 34 days ago.
Edited 34 days ago by mchrispen

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


Nice catch!



Posted 34 days ago.

th3beerman
Saint Paul, MN
25 Posts


I was emailed the V3.3 a couple days ago. Is that the one you are using?

Also, I updated my own personal spreadsheet to incorporate formulas to calculate OG, FG, ABV, Color (SRM), IBU, and BU/OG.  So for my light beer is was pretty much dead on with my homebrewtoad SRM and my own personal spreadsheets calculated SRM.  So if my Bru'n Water has the same discrepancy that yours has I wouldn't know it yet because I have only used it for one light colored beer so far.

Are there other things that are off that you noticed besides the color and the pH?




Posted 34 days ago.

mchrispen
Bastrop, TX
485 Posts


It's not a discrepancy... it's just awareness that the calculations are based on Lovibond and then converted to EBC and SRM for the total beer color. The biggest issue is with crystal malts, where the acid provision is larger for darker color, pronounced when just past 40L. BeerSmith seems to use the 40L as SRM with Briess Crystal 40 - so that slips through just fine into the spreadsheet, but I am seeing other discrepancies. The problem is with BeerSmith and not BWS as far as I can tell.

Brad Smith (BeerSmith) is on the record that for grain, Lovibond and SRM are interchangeable. It's not that critical to building the recipe, but seems to make a difference in the pH estimations. I am brewing a dark beer next week - will review it and see which (SRM v L) gets the more accurate prediction. I do note that many malt sheets give both values and they are different. BeerSmith seems to be a hodgepodge of fairly accurate and wildly wrong numbers and calls it all SRM.

Martin uses ProMash, which apparently has the correct L fields for malts (or have been modified as new malts are added).

There were 3 wrong submissions sent to me. In each at least one of the dark crystal malts and the base malts had the wrong L numbers. Of course, these range a bit - so - for example using a continental pils from Castle should be 1.6 L and not the 2.0 or 3.0 from choosing a generic Pilsner malt from Germany. Again - some are right and some are incorrect. One person didn't specify the base malt (2-row), but shifting the L to Rahr at 1.7 L from 2.2 brought the estimate within reason compared to the actual measurement.

I should add - I didn't measure these personally. Assuming these folk measured correctly - no wacky measurements. One guy I have brewed with before - he knows how to measure pH correctly.





Posted 34 days ago.

vinpaysdoc
Charter Member
High Point, NC
321 Posts


Matt,

What version of Bru'n Water do you have? Beerman has 3.3? The last I got was 3.2.




Posted 34 days ago.

mchrispen
Bastrop, TX
485 Posts


I just got the 3.3 version update yesterday. Will be using it tomorrow for a BoPils.

It seems to take about 3 weeks for all of the updates to be sent out and not sure where I fall in the list. Guessing alphabetical. My buddy Neil just received 3.2 last week.




Posted 34 days ago.

ercousin
Charter Member
Toronto, Canada
77 Posts


Where are people getting SRM ratings for malts? Every maltster website I've seen lists Lovibond.



Posted 34 days ago.

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