homebrew-calc

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This is a collection of utilities for planning and executing beer recipes. It takes recipes in JSON form, and predicts the Original Gravity (OG), the beer color in terms of the Standard Reference Method (SRM), the bitterness in terms of International Bitterness Units (IBU), and the final Alcohol by Volume (ABV) level. It also calculates the minerals that should be added to the mash in order to achieve a desired water profile, and estimates the pH of the mash. And if that's not enough, it also performs several helpful calculations relevant to brew day, like strike water temperature calculations, and computing mash efficiency. All that for the low-low-price of (you have to do everything via the command line)!

Installation

Clone this repository on your local machine, cd to the appropriate folder, and type "pip install ."

Usage

Perhaps the best way of illustrating its use is through example. The following recipe is what I brewed for my wedding. It is in the style of a Southern English Brown Ale, which is a bit sweet, nutty, and very malty. Although I brewed 15 gallons total, my equipment can only handle 5 gallon batches, which is reflected below.

For those new to brewing, you may wonder how I came up with the recipe. I started with a recipe from "Brewing Classic Styles" by Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer. I made a few modifications to suit my individual tastes, but often I just take recipes verbatim and only use these calculators to help me carry out the brew. I will assume the readers are broadly familiar with the brewing process.

In the words of Charlie Papazian, let's cut the shuck and jive and get on with the recipe! (To follow along, the recipe is included in the examples folder.)

{
  "Pitchable Volume": "5.25 gallons",
  "Malt": [
    {
      "name": "Maris Otter",
      "mass": "6.5 pounds"
    },
    {
      "name": "Victory Malt",
      "mass": "1.5 pounds",
      "type": "roast",
      "acidity": 40.0,
      "extract potential": 0.75,
      "degrees lovibond": 19.0
    },
    {
      "name": "Pale Chocolate",
      "mass": "10 ounces",
      "type": "roast",
      "acidity": 40.0,
      "extract potential": 0.71,
      "degrees lovibond": 200.0
    },
    {
      "name": "Dehusked Carafa II",
      "mass": "6 ounces",
      "type": "roast",
      "acidity": 40.0,
      "extract potential": 0.70,
      "degrees lovibond": 430
    }
  ],
  "Hops": [
    {
      "name": "EK Goldings",
      "mass": "0.75 ounce",
      "type": "pellets",
      "boil_time": "60 minutes"
    }
  ],
  "Yeast": [
    {
      "name": "WLP002 English Ale",
      "attenuation": 0.8
    }
  ],
  "Mash": {
    "type": "Infusion",
    "temperature": 156,
    "duration": "60 minutes"
  }
}

Starting from the top, we see this is a recipe for a 5.25 gallon batch. This is the amount of wort into which one would pitch yeast. I typically lose about .25 gallons by the time I get the final product in the keg, so this volume works for me, but of course you can use whatever you want. This library leverages my unit_parser library, so most physical quantities like volumes of water should actually be specified as a string with a unit of measurement explicitly listed, like "5.25 gallons". This is broadly true except for temperatures, since the conversion between Fahrenheit and Celsius is more complicated than just multiplying by a number. Perhaps confusingly, temperature deltas are specified with the unit attached, since a temperature difference of 5 degrees Fahrenheit is related to a corresponding Celsius value by a simple multiplication. Sorry!

Next we see the grain bill (the "Malt" section). We are using Maris Otter, Victory Malt, Pale Chocolate, and Dehusked Carafa II. In order to calculate things like Original Gravity, this library needs to know some information about each grain used. Information corresponding to many grains is already included in this library, but you can also explicitly list the relevant information. Basically, every time I use a new malt, I add it to the library.

Next are the hops used. Like the malt, we list each hop addition (there is only one in this recipe), specifying the variety, amount, and what we do with it. "Standard" boiled hops are specified in terms of how long they are in the boil; first wort, flameout, and dry hops are also supported.

Then comes the yeast. We simply list the name and attenuation of the yeast. In its current form, the calculator does not support yeast starters, mostly because I don't do yeast starters (that's a whole separate discussion). Finally, we are using a simple infusion mash for 1 hour at 156 degrees Fahrenheit. Although this library features advanced water chemistry calculations, we are not targeting any particular water profile in this recipe.

First we run malt_composition:

$ malt_composition weddingBrown.json -o weddingBrown1.json

This does a few things. It tells us that we can expect an OG of about 1.045, and an SRM of 26. It also generates a file weddingBrown1.json with additional details about the recipe that can be leveraged by subsequent scripts.

Next we run water_composition:

$ water_composition weddingBrown1.json -o weddingBrown1.json

This tells us exactly how much water we need. I always use distilled water, which I buy at the grocery store. I round up to the nearest gallon to give a little margin. It predicts the pre-boil gravity based on the anticipated mash efficiency. I measure the gravity after sparging to compute the actual efficiency achieved. If we were targeting a particular water profile, this command would also perform the relevant calculations.

Next we run hop_composition:

$ hop_composition weddingBrown1.json -o weddingBrown1.json

This command simply computes the bitterness of the beer.

Next is yeast_composition:

$ yeast_composition weddingBrown1.json -o weddingBrown1.json

This command tells us the number of yeast cells needed, the Final Gravity, and the ABV. As I mentioned earlier, I don't do yeast starters, purely out of laziness. I'd rather just buy the appropriate number of vials of yeast. (I value my time more than I value my money. Then why do I brew beer? Because brewing beer is fun, and making starters is not.) There are about 100 billion cells in a vial of yeast, so the math is easy.

Finally, on brew day:

$ brew_day weddingBrown1.json -o weddingBrown1.json

This command tells me the appropriate temperature to which to heat the mash water. For example, if I am targeting a mash temperature of 156, I actually need to heat the water to 185 in the brew kettle since it will cool down during the transfer. The command is tailored specifically for my setup and is probably less useful to others. This command can also be used for step mash calculations.