OG way off with new efficiency calc

dIPA2

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I'm stuck. Thought the new efficiency calc where you can now enter pre/post-boil volumes was going to fix my issue with lower hop aroma and bitterness than expected (hop utilization).

Brewed a Marzen today, volumes were the same as the recipe for pre/post-boil and OG was 1.063 but the recipe predicted 1.054. I just don't know what I'm doing wrong with my setup, I've been fighting volume and OG for many months. I have my equipment profile dialed in so I'm always meeting volumes correctly. The recipe was set at 75% brewhouse efficiency, I accidentally left an extra quart of wort/trub in the kettle, so my brewhouse efficiency came out at 76%, otherwise it would have been 80%.

Differences in OG prior to the pre/post-boil option were closer but today's difference is drastic and I just don't understand what the issue might be. Help please!

Thanks
Bob
 
Post a recipe and all your measured values so we can take a look.
 
This seems to have all the info, recipe and brew session. Should mention I measure OG with two refractometers, one digital. I calibrated both and they both read 16 Brix WRI or 1.063.

Thanks for taking a look.
 

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Wondering if there is a Brewers friend bug with the recent pre/post-boil efficiency changes. I plugged the grain bill into BeerSmith and Brewfather, both tools predict OG at 1.064 where Brewers friend is at 1.054?
 
I am also experiencing bugs. Estimated OG is way off with the new pre/post fields and I've also encountered some very wrong percentage calculation in the grain bill section. The error in calculation happened after I set a target OG in the grain bill section. I was hoping to get to brewing a lot earlier today but the recipe editor is completely messed up. I had to go and double check my grain bill percentages and a bunch of other stuff. I thought I was crazy but there is most definitely problems that need to be resolved.

@dIPA2 I did the same. Plugged my recipe in to Beersmith and my numbers were much closer to what they originally were before the changes were made to Brewer's Friend. My last edit to my Brewer's friend recipe was 8/11 and it was correct there.
 
There very well could be bugs here and definitely not saying there isn't with the way changes are made around here. But I will say make sure your profile settings are current and correct. I brewed on Saturday and I also have been test driving Brewfather software, and my numbers on both Brewersfriend and Brewfather were basically spot on with each other. I would make sure you're settings in each software you're using are the same. A couple points difference is one thing, but 10 is maybe hinting that you're settings are the same.

All that said, I've really been liking Brewfather. It takes some getting used to after working with Brewers friend for so long, but I'm getting the hang of it. Come re-up time here, I may very well be making a change.
 
I am also experiencing bugs. Estimated OG is way off with the new pre/post fields and I've also encountered some very wrong percentage calculation in the grain bill section. The error in calculation happened after I set a target OG in the grain bill section. I was hoping to get to brewing a lot earlier today but the recipe editor is completely messed up. I had to go and double check my grain bill percentages and a bunch of other stuff. I thought I was crazy but there is most definitely problems that need to be resolved.

@dIPA2 I did the same. Plugged my recipe in to Beersmith and my numbers were much closer to what they originally were before the changes were made to Brewer's Friend. My last edit to my Brewer's friend recipe was 8/11 and it was correct there.

Whew! Glad someone else is seeing something. Good on you for checking the recipe estimates prior to brewing. I'm guessing my Marzen is going to be out of style for ABV now.
 
There very well could be bugs here and definitely not saying there isn't with the way changes are made around here. But I will say make sure your profile settings are current and correct. I brewed on Saturday and I also have been test driving Brewfather software, and my numbers on both Brewersfriend and Brewfather were basically spot on with each other. I would make sure you're settings in each software you're using are the same. A couple points difference is one thing, but 10 is maybe hinting that you're settings are the same.

All that said, I've really been liking Brewfather. It takes some getting used to after working with Brewers friend for so long, but I'm getting the hang of it. Come re-up time here, I may very well be making a change.

Hmm...yeah, I've been using Brewers friend for a couple years, I have my equipment profile and boil-off and losses pretty well dialed in at this point. Previous batches haven't been off by 10 points. I didn't really think about it or question it until I got my OG and started scratching my head.

If you enter the grain bill above for a 5.5 gallon batch into the fermentor with 75% brewhouse what expected OG do you get? Every calculator I've tried shows 1.064 where Brewers friend is 1.054. I tried creating a new recipe in Brewers friend without adjusting pre/post-boil just inputting the grain bill and it still shows 1.054.
 
Hmm...yeah, I've been using Brewers friend for a couple years, I have my equipment profile and boil-off and losses pretty well dialed in at this point. Previous batches haven't been off by 10 points. I didn't really think about it or question it until I got my OG and started scratching my head.

If you enter the grain bill above for a 5.5 gallon batch into the fermentor with 75% brewhouse what expected OG do you get? Every calculator I've tried shows 1.064 where Brewers friend is 1.054. I tried creating a new recipe in Brewers friend without adjusting pre/post-boil just inputting the grain bill and it still shows 1.054.

I just mentioned it as some members here have realized that the default profile settings were no longer set to default after the changes. Again, most likely the bugs are out once more. Just thought I'd mention it.
 
No worries, thanks for the thought. I've been checking everything as I continue the head scratching. But like I mentioned, I've entered the grain bill into three different calculators assuming 5.5 gallons into the fermentor at 75% brewhouse, they all agree, with an expected OG of 1.064 and my actual was 1.063. Where Brewers friend estimates 1.054.

I've received one response from support. Will update as the discussion continues. Hopefully, I'm just doing something wrong in Brewers friend or there is actually a bug.
 
Hmm...yeah, I've been using Brewers friend for a couple years, I have my equipment profile and boil-off and losses pretty well dialed in at this point. Previous batches haven't been off by 10 points. I didn't really think about it or question it until I got my OG and started scratching my head.

If you enter the grain bill above for a 5.5 gallon batch into the fermentor with 75% brewhouse what expected OG do you get? Every calculator I've tried shows 1.064 where Brewers friend is 1.054. I tried creating a new recipe in Brewers friend without adjusting pre/post-boil just inputting the grain bill and it still shows 1.054.
Make sure you eliminate the possibility of measurement error (not saying you made one). Then check your profile and make sure it's attached to the recipe. Some of the recent "improvements" have led to weird things happening like recipes forgetting the profile. As Thunderwagn says, I've had pretty good results from BF's calculator but weird things have been happening lately.
 
Make sure you eliminate the possibility of measurement error (not saying you made one). Then check your profile and make sure it's attached to the recipe. Some of the recent "improvements" have led to weird things happening like recipes forgetting the profile. As Thunderwagn says, I've had pretty good results from BF's calculator but weird things have been happening lately.

Yeah, I tried eliminating part of the measurement piece by ignoring actuals and putting the grain bill into BeerSmith and Brewfather. Those two both agree based on the equipment setup/etc with an estimated OG of 1.064 and my actual was 1.063. Brewers friend estimated(s) 1.054 and I can't figure out why. Have had a couple back and forth messages with support, nothing conclusive yet.
 
Not to pile on, but I am also experiencing this issue. I have recipes that I've done a few times over the years, suddenly, all the OGs are way off. When I compare to the snapshot recipe from the last go around I get a significant drop in OG with the identical recipe, equipment profile and ingredients. Noticeably, SRM and IBU are also off for what appears to be the same calculation problem.

EDIT: Additional info, most of the information on this recipes is pretty tightly dialed in over the years. I've done this recipe probably 5 times with results accurate to the "oldbeercalc" screenshot that's attached. I've also attached the "newbeercalc".
 

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There very well could be bugs here and definitely not saying there isn't with the way changes are made around here. But I will say make sure your profile settings are current and correct. I brewed on Saturday and I also have been test driving Brewfather software, and my numbers on both Brewersfriend and Brewfather were basically spot on with each other. I would make sure you're settings in each software you're using are the same. A couple points difference is one thing, but 10 is maybe hinting that you're settings are the same.

All that said, I've really been liking Brewfather. It takes some getting used to after working with Brewers friend for so long, but I'm getting the hang of it. Come re-up time here, I may very well be making a change.

I went to the Brewfather site and watched the video intro last week. A couple of days later I followed the Get Started link on brewfather.app and the page (web.brewfather.app) appeared to load but just came up blank. I've tried several times since ant it does the same. Have you visited the web.brewfather.app page in the last few days?
 
I went to the Brewfather site and watched the video intro last week. A couple of days later I followed the Get Started link on brewfather.app and the page (web.brewfather.app) appeared to load but just came up blank. I've tried several times since ant it does the same. Have you visited the web.brewfather.app page in the last few days?
Yes, it's loading for me.
 
Thanks. I'm wondering if I need to go through all of the information on the Learn More link initially.
 
Not to pile on, but I am also experiencing this issue. I have recipes that I've done a few times over the years, suddenly, all the OGs are way off. When I compare to the snapshot recipe from the last go around I get a significant drop in OG with the identical recipe, equipment profile and ingredients. Noticeably, SRM and IBU are also off for what appears to be the same calculation problem.

EDIT: Additional info, most of the information on this recipes is pretty tightly dialed in over the years. I've done this recipe probably 5 times with results accurate to the "oldbeercalc" screenshot that's attached. I've also attached the "newbeercalc".

Thanks for confirming. I'm pretty sure that whatever they've done to attempt to separate boil-off loss and trub loss in the efficiency calculation has incidentally impacted how they're calculating OG and hence SRM/IBU/etc. I don't think it's correct. No further follow-up from support yet.
 
Thanks for confirming. I'm pretty sure that whatever they've done to attempt to separate boil-off loss and trub loss in the efficiency calculation has incidentally impacted how they're calculating OG and hence SRM/IBU/etc. I don't think it's correct. No further follow-up from support yet.

Hopefully it'll be set before my next brew day... otherwise i'll have to just go blind on those calcs!
 
Hopefully it'll be set before my next brew day... otherwise i'll have to just go blind on those calcs!

Going blind will likely be as close as my expected OG = 1.054 and actual 1.063, haha, oh well, now I'll have a 6.5+% Marzen. I feel like I've been fighting matching OG my entire brew career. Was annoyed enough that I pulled up BeerSmith and spent a few hours trying to figure out how the heck to dial-in the 1,000 different knobs. Think I have it figured out enough I can brew from it, so I'll be trusting BeerSmith for now until BF support can instruct what I mis-calculated or they correct the apparent bug.
 
We're digging into this now. So far, the problems we've seen have been related to volume being incorrectly entered into the calculator, but we are looking into all of the different ways the OG is calculated and that of course impacts efficiency. I wanted to let you know that we are not ignoring this, and are instead really actively working on it.
 

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