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Hop Inventory automatic AA and automatic maintain IBU when substituting hops

groetting

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Beersmith has a hop age tool, and a hop inventory. I was planning to add my hops to the hop inventory, but discovered that it does not care about the AA content of the hops, nor the year. I do, however.
I suggest that AA is added to the hops, so you can have several listings of the same hops, just with different AA. I also suggest that the AA is automatically estimated based on the initial input of Hop name, claimed AA and year. Then it should be possible to calculate it using the correct formula in the hop age tool, and keep the AA correct at all times. This will significantly improve the hop substitution feature in the recipe editor. For instance your recipe has Target at 10% AA, and then you could choose "Substitue" and Select any inventory hops, and then it would maintain the same IBU with the new hops. If the selected inventory hops is not sufficient to maintain the same IBU, it should prompt to select another hop for the remaining IBU.
I understand that implementing this probably would involve some effort, but I think it would be an awesome improvement.
 
groetting said:
Beersmith has a hop age tool, and a hop inventory. I was planning to add my hops to the hop inventory, but discovered that it does not care about the AA content of the hops, nor the year. I do, however.

The inventory for a hop does reference the %AA for that hop.  When I have multiple lots of a given hop, I duplicate the hop in the profile and adjust the parameters according to the information I have.  I then adjust the hop name to include the %AA for easy reference.  Each hop lot is then listed independently and I know which hop lot I draw from for the recipe.


I suggest that AA is added to the hops, so you can have several listings of the same hops, just with different AA. I also suggest that the AA is automatically estimated based on the initial input of Hop name, claimed AA and year. Then it should be possible to calculate it using the correct formula in the hop age tool, and keep the AA correct at all times. This will significantly improve the hop substitution feature in the recipe editor. For instance your recipe has Target at 10% AA, and then you could choose "Substitue" and Select any inventory hops, and then it would maintain the same IBU with the new hops.

This would be a nice option to be able to substitute keeping the same IBU contribution.  I usually do the quick conversion in my head when I sub one lot for another.  If I am using 15 grams of a 12% AA hop and my new batch is around 14% AA, I can pretty quickly guess that I will need about 13 grams of the new lot to get close to the same HBU/IBU contribution.


If the selected inventory hops is not sufficient to maintain the same IBU, it should prompt to select another hop for the remaining IBU.

It may work for someone with a vast inventory, but I plan my brews out months in advance and use the shopping list feature to put together the items that I need.  I would not want the selection of an ingredient tied to just what I have in inventory.  Maybe as a user option to turn on or off this would work for those who create recipes from inventory. 

I understand that implementing this probably would involve some effort, but I think it would be an awesome improvement.

Just my input.  Realize that many people use the program differently than how you may use it.  I, for instance, would not care for the program to determine my hop %AA based upon the HSI since the HSI is measured using a set of criteria which my hops in storage do not encounter.  My hops once opened are vacuum sealed and placed in a freezer for storage.  I find very little degradation of the bitterness from a lot of hops over the course of several years when treated and stored this way.  Others I know do not care for their hop inventories in the same way and so choose to adjust the %AA in a manner which suits them.

Good ideas and worth talking about to determine interest in these features you suggested!
 
+1 from me. I've mentioned this before across 2 different suggestions. It's fairly easy to calculate substituted hops weight to maintain IBUs but I'm sure it would be easy enough to just have a check box saying 'maintain IBUs' when you choose a new hop. I'd also find date of opening a really useful addition to all ingredient inventories and it would then presumably be quite easy to use the same calculations used in the hop age tool to have a column in the inventory with current AA% estimate.

P.S. I have a really simple spreadsheet for hop substitution maintaining IBUs - it just multiplies current AA% * weight and uses that calculated value / the substituted hop's AA% to give the new weight.
 
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