Potential SG for kits

[SteveD14]

Hi all,

 

I am trying out a few brewing softawre programmes and am intrigued by the way they treat Kits. Many dont really cater for kit brews having no easy way of allowing for the bitterness of a hopped extract.

Some do, and I am looking currently at Brew target, Beer Smith, and the Aussie designed home brew "kit and extract designer spreadsheet" that is often quoted in forums.

 

While I can work out appropriate colour and bitterness data from the data provided by Coopers, I am not so sure about the right data for potential SG which then drives the OG calcualtions.

 

Can anyone give me a clue as to the correct potential SG for Coopers kits, or kits in general.

 

thanks

 

Steve D

[AdamH1525226084]

Hi Steve

I used the spreadsheet and my actual readings have been pretty close to what that gives - maybe 0.001 off e.g. instead of 1.053 I get 1.052. That can generally be attributed to my overfilling or not stirring well enough [lol]

 

I can't help work out what the kits will provide though. Check out the formulae in the background of the spreadsheet.

[SteveD14]

Thanks for the reply Adam,

 

Looks like 1.036 is the standard for all kits in the spreadsheet, so thats the smae as plain LME which makes sense.

In my example I get 1.039 on the sheet and tested 1.042 actual. Predicted FG is 1.011 and actual was 1.012 so not too far off.

 

interestingly the beer smith software does not list maltodextrine as a sugar (Its listed as a "misc") so doesnt get into the OG calc, hence the result of 1.035 in that programme.

Seems to me that it will naturally affect both OG and FG since it largely unfermentable.

[AdamH1525226084]

Yeah, completely unfermentable. Using maltodextrin will result in a higher FG than if you used a fermentable sugar like dextrose - but the OG would be similar, if not the same.

[PB2]

As a general rule, we treat maltodextrin as unfermentable.

 

However, brands of Maltodextrin are usually not all complex carbohydrate - their spec sheets will quote a DE value (dextrose equivalent).

The clue to the DE is often included in the brand name (eg Fieldose 17 - R has a DE of 17%) [biggrin]

[SteveD14]

Just as I thought. Its wierd then that all the software I look at either includes maltodextrine as a 100 % sugar and therfore gets the right OG but a wrong FG, or excludes it and gets the wrong OG but basically correct FG. I would have thought with all the emphasis on brewing to style, that this would be important to get right. I guess there must be very limited use of maltodextrine outside of Copopers kits or something like that.