Please create Hop Aging Tool in Calculators

Saarland

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Please consider creating a hop aging tool to determine the Alpha content of stored hops. I have some hops stored in a freezer for an extended time that I know it loses Alpha over time. I date stamp my hops in storage. So it would be very beneficial to the user community that Brewers Friend include a tool that calculates the Alpha content from the date the hops are stored. I have been brewing over thirty years with BeerSmith until I converted my recipe's to B.F. but I still use the Aging hops tool from B.S. to calculate my hop additions due to lower Alpha content from long-term storage..
 
Is it linear, or at least predictable enough? If some other site has this I suspect so, but I do wonder.

Seconded: good idea

@Pricelessbrewing
 
Is it linear, or at least predictable enough? If some other site has this I suspect so, but I do wonder.

Seconded: good idea

@Pricelessbrewing
The other program that I use for aged hop additions works very well. Not sure if it's linear as I do not know what the programmer designed under the hood. I've used it on several occasions and the results have always been favorable. The key is when you buy hops use a permanent marker and write the date of purchase on the bag along with Alpha percentage the hops is stored in. My case I use a Food Saver food vacuum sealer.

At a time when I could buy a bunch of whole hops I had a lot of them, EKG, at the time and still have some left. I flushed out the bag with CO2 and re-vacuum sealed the bag each time. Keeps the air out and most of the Alpha percentage intact. I also keep them in my extra freezer which seems to help. Note: If you uses CO2 to flush do so very carefully with very, very low pressure so you don't blow hopes all other the kitchen. I made that mistake once and won't repeat.

Being skeptical of the calculator I decided to try it on some older (quite old) hops and see what the results would be. The tool takes into account the age of the hops stored then adjusts the viable Alpha percentage. For instance I had some EKG leaf with an original Alpha content of 4.2% when sealed in storage. When I use the hops calculator from the 'other' program which calculated the Alpha % was now 2.5%. I used Brewers Friend to add the adjusted percentage which increases the amount of hops you need to reach the predicted value and brewed it. The beers come out is if I were using fresh EKG hops. In this case it was a Dry Irish Stout, Ummm!

Hope this helps and the programmers of B.F. add a hops aging calculator soon so I don't have to use the 'other' program.

-Richard
 
We have this on the project calendar!

We've recently added a field for yeast in inventory and shopping lists to indicate the production date, in order to calculate viability during recipe building and for brew sessions. We'll do the same thing for hops and AA% remaining and IBUs.

The formula should be an exponential decay if I remember correctly where a fixed % of the remaining AA% is lost during a given time period.

So if 10% if lost per month, for the sake of easy math...
Month 0: 10% AAU
Month 1: 0.90 * 10% = 9% AAU
Month 2: 0.90 * 9% = 8.1% AAU
Etc etc

AA_m => AA at given month m following Viability Loss % per month
Where AAU at given month m
AA_m = AAU_0 * (1- VL)^m
AA_2 = 10% * (1- 0.90)^2 = 8.1%
 
We have this on the project calendar!

We've recently added a field for yeast in inventory and shopping lists to indicate the production date, in order to calculate viability during recipe building and for brew sessions. We'll do the same thing for hops and AA% remaining and IBUs.

The formula should be an exponential decay if I remember correctly where a fixed % of the remaining AA% is lost during a given time period.

So if 10% if lost per month, for the sake of easy math...
Month 0: 10% AAU
Month 1: 0.90 * 10% = 9% AAU
Month 2: 0.90 * 9% = 8.1% AAU
Etc etc

AA_m => AA at given month m following Viability Loss % per month
Where AAU at given month m
AA_m = AAU_0 * (1- VL)^m
AA_2 = 10% * (1- 0.90)^2 = 8.1%


Will the exponential decay method provide a user selecting a hops in their inventory (provided a purchase date was entered) automatically calculate a new IBU and the total amount of hops added to a recipe?
 
Will the exponential decay method provide a user selecting a hops in their inventory (provided a purchase date was entered) automatically calculate a new IBU and the total amount of hops added to a recipe?
It will adjust the AA of the hops when pulling into the recipe builder, as well as adjust the IBUs. At the moment we don't have plans to auto calculate the amount of hops needed to hit a target IBU, but it's something we've talked about internally.
 

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