automatically scale hops amount to keep same IBU

[whitemancanhop]

The AA% of hops change year to year and from farm to farm. I think it would be fantastic if there was a scale feature for hops so that I can change the AA% and keep the same IBU contribution of that particular addiiton by having the software automatically adjust the amount of hops.

For example...
Say I have a recipe that has a 5.9%AA hop addition at 60min that gives me a IBU contribution of 20IBUs. Now, a year later, my inventory of that particular hop is now only 5%AA. I would like to be able to modify the AA% from 5.9% to 5% and have the software automatically adjust the weight of hops needed to keep the same 20IBU contribution.

What do you guys think?

[bobcat_brewer]

Excellent feature. I'm frequently playing with my hop weights a little at a time to get back to the same number when the AA% changes.

[whitemancanhop]

50 views and no one else agrees? I REALLY want this one.

[jawbox]

you can already do this, replace in recipe. Overwriting recipes would destroy the integrity of you brew log.

[whitemancanhop]

you can already do this, replace in recipe. Overwriting recipes would destroy the integrity of you brew log.

Please explain.

If I change the AA% of any hop addition in my recipie... the overal IBU's will change.

How would this destroy the integrity of the my brew log. The feature I am requesting essentially keeps the recipe EXACTLY the same... not destroy it.

[slothrob]

you can already do this, replace in recipe. Overwriting recipes would destroy the integrity of you brew log.

Please explain.

If I change the AA% of any hop addition in my recipie... the overal IBU's will change.

How would this destroy the integrity of the my brew log. The feature I am requesting essentially keeps the recipe EXACTLY the same... not destroy it.

I believe Jawbox is concerned that a fully automatic feature would mean that opening up an old recipe would overwrite it with the new hop quantities based on current inventory, destroying his brewing record.

The feature you want is already incorporated into the software, without the risk of saving an automatically altered recipe. Once you have a new hop in your inventory, you can open an historic recipe, highlight the old hop in the recipe then right-click (or option-click) on the hop in your inventory and select "Replace in Recipe". The recipe will be updated, with the hop quantity automatically corrected to maintain the original IBUs.

[jawbox]

exactly what sloth replied. It appears that there are lots of features or tricks in BTP that most users are unaware of. I think this goes back to Bill's request for a comprehensive user guide.

[jeff]

As a complement of "replace in recipe" feature, perhaps BTP could ask the user if they would like the hop weight to be adjusted if the user makes a change to the hop alpha acid value. Less steps are involved than with "replace in recipe" if this is handled at the time a hop is edited in the recipe. Seem reasonable?

[slothrob]

That seems like a good solution, Jeff.

[whitemancanhop]

Jeff, thanks for the addition of the "adjust quantity" dialog. It works great.

Is it possible to take this feature one step further and ask the user if he/she wants to update all instances of that hop in the current recipe?

For instance, I may have 5 hop additions of the same hop at 5 different times in the boil. I would need click on all 5 additions in the recipe and change their AA percentage, and then let BTP update the quantity. Generally speaking, if I am updating the AA of a particular hop in a recipe, 99% of the time I would want to update all instances of that hop in my recipe.

So basically 3 options to the dialog box: Adjust quantity of this entry, Adjust quantity of all entries, Keep the same.

Let me know your thoughts...

[slothrob]

A related change that I think might be useful would be some way to easily update all ingredients in a recipe to those currently in your inventory. Maybe it would require some kind of check box list in a pop-up window and enough AI to understand that Pale Ale Malt bought 1 day is the same as Pale Ale Malt bought another day...

I've run into this often when I go to re-brew a recipe and I have a new lots of all my grains and it thinks I have none of the ingredients in my inventory. It's not a huge chore to run through the "replace in recipe" method, but if the hop inventory feature is getting re-vamped maybe there would be a way for it to include all ingredients.