IBU / EBU GW's book and Brewmate

[jonnyt]

I'm just about to embark on my 2nd all grain brew, the first was 25 years ago, don't have a clue why I stopped. A mate setup a commercial micro brewery and following a trip round and a few pints of his brews I've rekindled my desire for home brew.

However after purchasing GW's book I'm going for the TT Landlord given it's my favorite pub pint.

GW's book puts this as EBC 20 and EBU 35
When I put the ingredients into Brewmate it gives EBC 14.3 and IBU 17.5

So two questions.
1) On colour which is right, GW's book or Brewmate?
2) Whats the difference between IBU and EBU and are these figures similar?

[mat69]

doesn't brewmate give the colour in SRM not EBC (ignore me if you already converted it)

[jonnyt]

Gives it in EBU's on the version I have (1.22)

[Beer O'Clock]

As far as IBUs are concerned, BrewMate will give you a different result because you need to adjust the %AA of the hops. If you know this (and you should) then you adjust quantities until you reach the required IBU.

[jonnyt]

I've done that, my hops are pretty close to the Brewmate defaults.

I still have IBU 50% of EBU in GWs book

[Kev888]

Just to clarify, did you put GW's hops into brewmate, or some actual ingredients that you have? I can't recall if he quotes the %AA but they do change over harvests and years - sometimes a lot - so there can be big variations in how bitter the hops are.

I only use IBU but I'd understood that EBUs are numerically the same value, even if the calculations may differ. There are loads of ways of estimating bitterness and its not an exact science so I'd not be expecting complete agreement, but 'if' you're using the same %AA as GW then 50% seems way too far out if the same ingredients are used in both. I can't say I've used brewmate, but I'd suggest double checking that the %AA, volume, time and gravity are entered identically to GW's recipe.

If I get chance when I get home I'll have a look at BYOBRA to see if the recipe checks out with what my calculations would be too.

Cheers
kev

[jonnyt]

Arh,

I hadn't included the boil times. I can also see from the book that EBU == IBU

Posting in the values for my hops I now get EBU/IBU 44.3 as opposed the GW's 35.

Will EBU 44.3 be much too bitter?

The hop bill is
30gr Goldings (I've used East Kent Goldings is this the same)
50gr Syrian Goldings

Obviously I want to make something very quaffable!

[Beer O'Clock]

As I said; try reducing the quantities until you get the correct IBU.

[jonnyt]

Thanks, I'll just modify the recipe to meet the IBU/EBU using the AA% of the hops I have.