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jeffpn

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It seems to me that one of the only variables that you can measure about your beer is ABV. it's easy to measure gravity before and after fermentation. This tells you what your ABV is. I've read somewhere that IBUs can only be measured in a lab. I doubt that it's practical for a homebrewer to measure SRM either. Can carbonation be measured? I don't know how it could. Am I missing any other variables? Gravity, bitterness, color, and carbonation have to be the big ones. Keep in mind I'm referring to measuring a variable, not calculating it.
 
oxygen also, and it can be measured but its very expensive

I totally agree with your analogy that most of these formulas floating around aren't that accurate, close but cant really be truly correct unless measured in some way personally by you and most cant so it just a guess,

sorry to rant off topic but you've actually hit a nerve thats been festering in my head for years, and its all these formula people, I see these people spouting these out all over and I have to say its just not true, Ill spout out a number just for fun lol "70%" of all brewers do not brew anywhere close to exactly the same so how can we all go by the same formula ?? I have more but wont waste your time so my rants over lol
 
Measuring SRM should be a simple matter of shining light through the beer and measuring what comes out the other side. If you know exactly the power density of the light going in and the wavelength distribution, measuring the same on the other side would tell you what has been absorbed - the darker the beer the more light it absorbs. Ultimately it depends on what SRM relates to... total % of white light that passes through? Only particular colors of light? That's a question for who (or what) ever came up with the concept of SRM.

Measuring carbonation shouldn't be that hard, but would likely ruin the sample, as it would surely involve sucking it all out. For instance, take a sample of beer, apply a controlled vacuum, wait X number of hours then see how much weaker the vacuum has become. That would tell you how much gas had come out of the beer. It wouldn't differentiate between CO2 and other gases that might be released, though.

Or you could just pull out your tricorder...
 
It seems to me that one of the only variables that you can measure about your beer is ABV. it's easy to measure gravity before and after fermentation. This tells you what your ABV is. I've read somewhere that IBUs can only be measured in a lab. I doubt that it's practical for a homebrewer to measure SRM either. Can carbonation be measured? I don't know how it could. Am I missing any other variables? Gravity, bitterness, color, and carbonation have to be the big ones. Keep in mind I'm referring to measuring a variable, not calculating it.
Measuring ABV is not possible either. We approximate using gravity. By the way you can agitate the CO2 out of the beer too. It really doesn't matter that much as long as the beer tastes good .
 
I can measure how many I drink .....only in metric though !
You could measure the pH of finished product if you really wanted to , can't see any benefits on our scale though
 
Measuring SRM should be a simple matter of shining light through the beer and measuring what comes out the other side. If you know exactly the power density of the light going in and the wavelength distribution, measuring the same on the other side would tell you what has been absorbed - the darker the beer the more light it absorbs. Ultimately it depends on what SRM relates to... total % of white light that passes through? Only particular colors of light? That's a question for who (or what) ever came up with the concept of SRM.

Measuring carbonation shouldn't be that hard, but would likely ruin the sample, as it would surely involve sucking it all out. For instance, take a sample of beer, apply a controlled vacuum, wait X number of hours then see how much weaker the vacuum has become. That would tell you how much gas had come out of the beer. It wouldn't differentiate between CO2 and other gases that might be released, though.

Or you could just pull out your tricorder...
So, you agree with my premise that measuring those variables is not practical by the average homebrewer.
 
Measuring ABV is not possible either. We approximate using gravity.
Sure, but it's got to be a very close approximation, probably within 0.1% ABV. I still don't think there's a way to easily measure SRM, IBUs, or volumes of CO2. I'm not concerned about it. It's just a thought I had the other night.
 
So, you agree with my premise that measuring those variables is not practical by the average homebrewer.

Absolutely. An interesting thought experiment, but I think the only practical way for us HBers to measure beer is with our mouths!

Hmm, now where did I leave my experimental sample - I mean beer glass :)
 
beer tasting is very much in the eye of the beholder, I have beer now that taste odd the first few drinks and after that its perfect, another guy says yuck and another says he cant even taste the odd flavor its great lol
 
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And now the tangent: Have you ever seen a judge rate every beer in a particular style poorly, either knowing or later learning that he hates the style? If I were one to pay people to drink my beer, that would drive me up a wall!
 

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