What formulas and calculations exist for the home brewer?
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Sorry, but the answers to this question boil down to "as necessary as you personally want to know". Some people don't even care about gravity/alcohol, and some want be the new Tinseth, or do fast-ferment tests to find the ultimate possible attenuation.– jsledMay 1, 2014 at 11:56
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2jsled, maybe the way to go about this, because I do think it is useful is to do a community wiki page where each entry is a formula with the explanation about how/when/why it is used? Then it is less opinion based on "what do we really need" and more information based.– tomcoccaMay 1, 2014 at 12:41
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1I think there'd be a helpful question in this, especially for newer brewers (like me). Since it is somewhat subjective, recipes and tutorials have different measurements depending on the writers. It'd be nice to have a list so we what is out there.– a_hardinMay 1, 2014 at 13:07
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1I'd agree with the rephrasing and utility, perhaps something along the lines of "What formulas exist for homebrewing?", but I'll also note that there are many existing questions along those lines. A community wiki project to consolidate them might just be in order.– jsledMay 1, 2014 at 14:47
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@jsled, will you re-open this with appropriate edits and CW flag, or shall I do it?– mdmaMay 2, 2014 at 14:37
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1 Answer
As jsled mentioned, you can calculate just about everything to do with brewing beer from the specific heat of your mash tun to the amount of gas it takes to bring your brew kettle to boil given a specific gravity of its contents. It all depends on how much you want to know and how you brew!
Here is a site with several calculators that might help you see the possibilities of refinement and fine control that major breweries strive to achieve. http://www.brewersfriend.com/stats/
Personally, I use a piece of software called BeerSmith that gives me a lot of information that I find useful, particularly mash volumes and mash in temps, which is important in all-grain brewing in a non-HERMS mash tun.