Pre-Boil Gravity Bug when using "Honey Malt"

phikai

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I created a NEIPA Recipe that has .5lbs of Honey Malt:

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/809365/new-england-ipa

The expected Pre-Boil gravity of this beer is 1.047 and then during boil it's expected to come up 17 points to 1.064.

In several other applications (BeerSmith and Brewfather) the Pre-Boil OG was much higher (1.056 in Brewfather:

https://share.brewfather.app/S54CKkOujEZ8tp

A little digging leads me to believe it's treating Honey Malt as Honey in the calculation. If you click on the link for the Ingredient "Honey Malt" inside of Brewer's Friend it actually takes you to the ingredient honey.
 
the preboil is not as important as the post boil, not saying this happened but there are many reasons you can get a false reading, foam on the top, not stirring enough, too much or little water added that's why it states just a estimate
 
the preboil is not as important as the post boil, not saying this happened but there are many reasons you can get a false reading, foam on the top, not stirring enough, too much or little water added that's why it states just a estimate

I should say, my actual brew came in about 5-6 points higher than the Brewer's Friend estimate. The issue here wasn't that, but rather that two different apps are estimating a much higher pre-boil gravity which leads me to believe the calculation in Brewer's Friend is wrong (despite post-boil gravity's being very similar). The post-boil gravity's being so similar makes sense if they're treating the "Honey Malt" as "Honey" and then assuming it's coming during the boil to bring the gravity way up.
 
I should say, my actual brew came in about 5-6 points higher than the Brewer's Friend estimate. The issue here wasn't that, but rather that two different apps are estimating a much higher pre-boil gravity which leads me to believe the calculation in Brewer's Friend is wrong (despite post-boil gravity's being very similar). The post-boil gravity's being so similar makes sense if they're treating the "Honey Malt" as "Honey" and then assuming it's coming during the boil to bring the gravity way up.
My actual brews often come out a few points over - it's the efficiency assumptions causing this.
 
I should say, my actual brew came in about 5-6 points higher than the Brewer's Friend estimate. The issue here wasn't that, but rather that two different apps are estimating a much higher pre-boil gravity which leads me to believe the calculation in Brewer's Friend is wrong (despite post-boil gravity's being very similar). The post-boil gravity's being so similar makes sense if they're treating the "Honey Malt" as "Honey" and then assuming it's coming during the boil to bring the gravity way up.
Have you dialed in your profile, that can throw things off too
 
Have you dialed in your profile, that can throw things off too

Profile has been pretty ok for the few brews I've run through it. If your profile is really dialed in... I'd suggest just tossing the 4 fermentables in to a blank recipe on your side with nothing else and see where you end up.
 
All my brews are either smack bang on the money (OG) or a point or two off and that's both preboil gravity and post boil gravity. Get your profile dialed in because im sure that's what the calculator works off.
 
also the attenuation of the yeast makes a big difference, I hit mine right on every brew and just tested a recipe against my spread sheet and the preboil was the same, every software will be a little different but its up to the user to adjust to each
 
On the profile front... if it was my profile, it would have to have something along the lines of 1.5 gallons of boil off over 60 minutes to see a 17 point jump in gravity or some additional adjunct during the boil. Both of which aren't true.

Again... the issue seems to be along the lines of the way it's calculating the Fermentable "Honey Malt". To further elaborate on this, if you click on this: https://www.brewersfriend.com/fermentables/honey-malt/

You'll notice it redirects to: https://www.brewersfriend.com/fermentables/honey/

That fermentable is then treated as Sugar. This is why I think the calculations on gravity (which I believe the Post-Boil OG to be pretty spot on) are off.
 
It seems we are inconsistent not the calculator as long as I'm around the Mark I'm cool with that. It only takes an extra hand full or two of grain when weighing out or extra or minus a pint or two of water and that will screw the readings.
 
honey is 37 PPG that's what I get but there may be a issue somewhere I'll call the troops ;)
 

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