IIPA Recipe Critique

No.

 

Sometimes.

I'm formulating a recipe with this variable and ran a bunch of different sugar additions through BS for grins. For sugar percentages below 5%, it treats it as 100% fermentable. When I boosted sugar additions to the 10% level it showed an FG dropping (i.e. 100% simple sugar fermentation plus increased attentuation of the basic malt bill). Pretty sure this is incorrect.

Ran the same numbers through Brewers Friend; adding sugar here boosted the FG (all additions), essentially showing the simple sugar as not being fully fermented. Again, pretty sure this is incorrect.

I don't have Brewcipher (no Excel), but would bet a six-pack of Hop Stoopid that Vikeman has it correct in his software.

Absolutely.

My Pliny clone finished at 10.15 (this was with sugar addition). Predicted FG was 10.13 (original recipe for Pliny shows 1.010). I thought it was magnificent and submitted for competition. One judge was all ga-ga and scored it a 43 . . . the judge sitting next to him said it was too sweet, gave it a 38. Even though I liked it I'm now using less malt and more sugars . . .

For the OP: Pretty good discussion on recipe formulation here. My advice is to brew early and brew often . . . you'll discover which way you want to go.

 

I have never thought "I shouldn't have added this extra Simcoe to the dry hop".

 

Brewcipher definitely has sugar as 100% fermentable. I have hit my fg within .001 on every recipe

 

Simple sugars are 100% fermentable. But because alcohol is less dense than water, adding simple sugar does reduce final gravity. (That's why we usually talk about apparent attenuation vice real attenuation.) So it sounds like BeerSmith may have that part right. What BeerSmith and Brewer's Friend don't have is a recognition of the different basic fermentabilty of various malts and grains, or the effects of mash parameters.

I'll take that bet! Oh, wait a minute...

 

Totally agree