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IBU's showing 0 for recipe

psywar

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Oct 18, 2018
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Hello,

I did attempt to search for this and the only solution I came up with was to make sure your equipment profile was showing hop utilization at 100%
Mine is currently showing this, but this recipe I am working on is still showing 0 IBU's for the hops I am using.

Any thoughts on how to fix this?

Thank you!
 

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Can you export the recipe as a .bsmx file and post it to this thread so we can open it up to see where the issue is?
 
Yeah, no problem.
Thank you again!
 

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There is an issue with your equipment and mash profiles.  Your top off water is 11.36 liters and your mash profile has an infusion of 6.51 liters.  This means you have a wort from initial runnings of 5.7 liters forcing a sparge volume of -6.84 liters and a boil volume of -1.14 liters.  You are boiling with a negative volume of water.  The program cannot calculate any bitterness without any water being present.

When I set the fermenter top off to zero, I get a IBU calculated to 71.5 IBU.

You need to rebalance the water to reduce the top off water enough to have some volume to boil. 
 
Thank you!
I have had the program for a while, but I suck with the water stuff - I will need to fiddle with that part.
On the upside, I was hoping for about 70IBU's so that's a good sign.

Thank you again!
 
So, here are the critical steps to getting your water volumes at least close to target:

First, if your vessels are already marked with volume scales, disregard them until proven to be accurate. 

Next, take a dip stick and a gallon or liter measuring cup and a dip stick you can mark.  You can then measure in volumes based upon most reasonable to measure volume which is applicable to your measuring capability by adding in a gallon or liter at a time and mark/measure the height corresponding to the amount added into your vessel/mash tun/brew kettle (easiest and most useful is to do this by amount added so as to come up with a scale appropriate for that vessel.)

Third, if you are draining through a spigot at or near the bottom of the vessel, drain the water out as you would if draining the wort after the mash.  Measure the volume which you can drain out.  The difference in volume in versus volume you collect draining out is your volume loss to dead space.

Add the water you drained out back into your kettle (or add a known amount to the boil kettle) and turn the heat on.  Allow it to come to a boil and boil for 60 minutes.  Measure the amount of water you have left.  The difference in water going in and water after boiling is your hourly boil off. 

Once you have these figures, update your equipment profile using the mash tun dead space and boil off rate you just measured. Remove any top off water you have to the boil kettle and/or fermenter.

Save this profile and update a copy of your recipe with this new profile.  Now check for mash tun volume needed on the mash tab.  If this exceeds the volume (water plus grain displacement), either adjust your water to grain ratio in the mash profile to allow it to fit or go back to your equipment profile and add the amount of top off water equal to slightly greater than the overage from the total mash volume required to either boil kettle top off or, if the pre-boil volume would be greater than the boil kettle would hold, to the fermenter top off. 

When I do this, I usually target my volume into fermenter to a value of the batch size plus trub loss initially until I get an amount which covers trub loss which covers most or all of the trub which may occur with heavy hop loading.  Once you are comfortable with that, you can set the trub loss to that number and reset the batch size to the desired amount into the fermenter.  Remember that each time you make a change to mash profile or equipment profile, you will need to update the profiles in each recipe you want to apply it to.  I use the date that I update the equipment profile as an immediately identifiable reminder which profile I have set up the recipe.
 
Thank you again!
This was really helpful - I actually copied this into a document and put it on my brewing drive.
I was on the struggle bus for a while today after work, but I finally got this figured out (I think) my IBU's came out to around 75 so I can still play with my water a little bit.
I do need to do as you mentioned and create a measuring stick and measure all of this stuff out.

My brewing hardware is a mix of stuff I could afford at the time and free stuff or stuff I got super cheap at garage sales and turned into mash tuns lol.
So there are no real measurements on anything.
I pretty much use my brew bucket that has gallon line marks and I just put the water in there first and just wing it.
My Wort Kettle is this thin pot I picked up for $19. It is large enough to do 3-4 gallons of wort so I stick to extract or I have been doing these partial mashes when I create my own beer since I can get grain cheaper than LME.
I found a 5gal Igloo cooler on the side of the road someone was going to trash, so I repurposed it into a mash tun for these partial brews.

It works lol!

Thank you again!
I will be looking to upgrade to BS3 pretty soon. I am looking forward to the Mead integration. I like to make Cyser's for the winter. I really want to make a dandelion wine in 2019 when they start growing.
 
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