The spider can reduce extraction by 10%. BUT my theory is people are chilling their wort too fast. The IBU calculators are based on experiments from years ago, when they were likely using crappy chillers, not the fancy ones that say they chill to pitch temp in 5 minutes. Want to hit your calculated IBU's? Ditch those expensive chillers and do a nice slow chill that takes 30 minutes or more...

@@srjmpls In that case I would actually prefer to add in a bit more hops. Hops are definitely costly, but a batch of ruined beer because of an infection is way more expensive.

@@jac540 Certainly an option, if you can figure out how much more hops to add. But infections from slow (or really, just normal) chilling are exceptionally rare. If infections from slow/regular chilling were common, nobody would be doing extended hop stands for NEIPA's at below 180F. I am not saying to chill so slowly that it takes an hour; simply that really fast chilling may not be a good goal if you want to hit your IBU target. This is one of several experiments I've read about where the IBU was too low once tested. What did he miss by? More than 15 points? That's pretty extreme. There is something modern brewers are doing differently from when the models were created years ago. (Those models are what are being used by the IBU software calculators.) They brewed lots of beers and had them tested for IBU's, then developed the models. My bet is they didn't have super fast chillers back then. Just a theory, but something has to explain why every time someone sends in a modern beer for IBU testing it seems to come in way low.

100%. The xBMT is not whether the beer is good, it’s whether the ingredient difference is noticeable. Crank out a 100 IBU Pale Ale and retest!

A bit of both 🤣 We clean the instrument and cuvette regularly. But the amount of samples, we have to test would take an extra long time. I think we need more cuvettes.

There is a bit of "fatigue" that occurs when you taste fifteen samples in less than an hour. Martin and I tend to take a sip a water between tastings, to try and "cleanse" our palates.

Yeah 15 samples in an hour would have your taste buds totally confused I reckon.

I would say "NO" ... but you go ahead and test that for us 🤪

I think you want to be consistent, I would say no. If your software is indicating 40 IBU, and reality says it is 20IBU but it tastes good and tastes to style, I wouldn't change anything. If you doubled your hops then it would be way more bitter than what your current perception of the bitterness is, which could be unpleasant even though 'reality' says it is correct to style. Also, 'everyones' perception of bitterness are based on the calculators in software so sharing recipes and talking in general as a community, we are all talking the same thing. Also #2, Martin said, after testing, he got about 30% of the expected bitterness from one beer, and then around 50% the bitterness on this batch. So there is randomness there as well. You would never know how much you actually need to modify your hop bill, you couldn't just say double it every time. I really only see this changing if hop calculators actually got very accurate, but it isn't really possible since the AA ratings on hops are just from a small sample of an entire crop, and the samples are tested extremely fresh. We just have to live with the built-in ambiguity of alpha acids, and the software calculators are as good as any method to manage it. And I'll have to watch the aged vs fresh hops video again...

@@cidmontenegro8225 thank you for the thought out explanation! It makes sense as there is some random outcomes, as you said. I guess if youtube, and the home brew club all speak relatively to the estimations that we rely on, then like you said we’re all speaking the same language. Good points!!

@@DimpieDeBruyn LOL that’s what I like so much about this channel! Martin goes out of his way to potentially waste $50-$100 worth of wort/ beer so I don’t have to 😂 I need to have a worthy 2 gallon test batch system, because the fear of dumping 5 gallons overcomes me lmao

Wellllll, there is of course something in between adding double the amount of hops, or as dimpie and cid suggest no extra hops: add a conservative extra amount of hops and be smart about it. Conservative: let's say adding an additional 20% extra hops in your next beers: if its not the way to go you just have beers that are slightly more bitter and hoppy than they should be. Be smart about it: add the extra hops to beers which are suited to it. Blond or tripel come to mind: lately there are more and more blonds and tripels out there with higher hop profiles, having your blond taste a bit like a pale ale is not the worst thing that could happen. I wouldn't do it for beers which are more biased towards malt flavors.

That would make for a good experiment. 2 batches, same amount of hops, one goes into the hop spider, the other goes directly into the boil.

@@hopsinandoutbrewz We got you! kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z3Kre6t9aLiogKssi=tzLLytTMoT6mLdrO

We've done that xBmt, in fact Martin made a video about it. Unfortunately, KZbin won't allow me to share links to our website or even our even our other videos. That said they're not difficult to find, just do a keyword search on our site or our channel!

Asked and answered. kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z3Kre6t9aLiogKssi=qQkHkf-2uBhS6Ezo

I had replied with the show episode link as well as the website link. Haha. Same deal- both comments expunged.

This channel is worth a sub, Martin is on his game with a new video every week!!

I like this idea

In my experience, it can make a slight difference, especially if you’re using lower AA% hops that will contribute extra flavors by volume. Ex: 3oz of low-AA% Tettnanger are going to have a bigger impact than 0.5oz of Magnum.