Recipe Setup

Getting Started

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/calculator

Before you start be sure login to save your recipe, then set defaults in General Settings and setup an Equipment Profile.

Recipe Name

Create a name for your recipe, if shared this will be used in the search.

Author / Source

Enter your name as the author.

Units

US - Gallons, quarts, pounds, ounces, and degrees Fahrenheit.
Metric - Liters, kilograms, grams, and degrees Celsius.

Chose any combination of 'Units' when building a recipe, allowing you to enter ingredients in a recipe that are sold in different units of weight to avoid conversion decimals; for example, a recipe with 55 lbs American Two Row and 25 kg Weyermann Pilsner or; a recipe with 500 grams Roasted Barley, 20 Lbs American Two Row.

Style and Style Sub Category

Select a style then sub style, these are BJCP styles per the 2015 style guidelines.

Brew Method

All Grain
BIAB (Brew in a Bag) - All grain, but calculations assume full volume mashing
Extract - Gives a Steeping grain option for adding fermentables.
Partial Mash

Batch Size

At Brewer's Friend, brewers may choose two different options for batch size.

Fermentor: how much wort made it into the primary fermentor.
Kettle: the ending kettle volume, right before being drained.

Use the target drop down next to the batch size field on the recipe editor to set this. The default setting for batch size target is 'fermentor', but it can be changed under your general settings. How you define your batch determines where your efficiency is targetting, and how the water calculations work.

Est. Boil Sizes and Boil Time

The Preboil size is how much wort you will be boiling at the very start of the boil. This value is used for IBU calculations, enter an estimate based on your experience OR if you've setup your equipment profile then set the Preboil to Auto and let us take it from there!

The Postboil size is how much wort you will have in the kettle after chilling but before transferring to your fermentor. This value is used for IBU calculations, enter an estimate based on your experience OR if you've setup your equipment profile then set the Postboil to Auto and let us take it from there!

The Boil time is the duration of the boil, a 60 minute boil is traditional but shorter boils are becoming much more common!

Auto-Boil - Adjusted boil volumes

You can also let the system automatically adjust the pre and/or post boil volumes. This Auto Calculate toggle button will update both the pre and post boil volumes based on the current QWR calculations, using the recipes batch size, the equipment profile, and all of the ingredient additions.

As of May 15th, 2022 - The Auto calculate will dynamically adjust the pre and postboil volumes based on changes such as hop additions, accounting for the wort volume absorbed by your hops in the boil additions, and sugar additions in the boil, but many more factors are accounted for. Leaving you to focus on the ingredients, and letting the recipe builder to adjust accordingly.

In the gif above, you can see me opening a popular public IPA recipe from the brewing community. First things first, I select my equipment profile. Next I use the auto postboil feature where you can see the auto calculation has accounted for the volume increase due to the extensive hop additions (13.75 oz!) and increased the postboil volume accordingly. I take a guess at the preboil volume needed, normally it's about a gallon more for my setup with the IPAs that I normally do but I know it'll be a little higher so I estimate 7 gallons. I thought that would be pretty close, but the auto-preboil calculation is telling me that I'm off by almost a quart! If I relied on my guesses, I'd be short a quart, my SG would be 2 points higher. Not the end of the world, but I always want to be as accurate and repeatable as possible.

Efficiency

There are four main types of efficiency in the brewing world.

More details about the Brewing Efficiency Chart The type of efficiency used by the recipe editor for calculations is determined by the batch size target. Fermentor uses Brew House Efficiency, and Kettle uses Ending Kettle Efficiency. For Extract Brewing: For extract batches, the recipe efficiency value only impacts steeping grains. Set the number fairly low to start with, say 25%, and raise it from there if you notice you are beating the target OG. The gravity impact from steeping grains in an extract batch is minimal, but the recipe editor gives you full control over how much of a sugar contribution they provide. In partial mash brewing, 50-60% may be more reasonable, but set it low until you start consistently exceeding it. For Partial Mash, All Grain and BIAB Recipes: Efficiency is based on the batch size target:

When batch size target is set to Fermentor: efficiency stands for 'Brew House Efficiency', which captures your entire system. It factors in sugar losses all the way to the fermentor.
When batch size target is set to Kettle: efficiency stands for 'Ending Kettle Efficiency', which is how much of the sugars from the grain were converted and made it into the kettle at the end of the boil.

Ending Kettle Efficiency is always higher than Brew House Efficiency because it does not count losses from trub, hops absorption, and kettle dead space. Thus ending kettle efficiency and volume happen to be more portable across equipment for a given recipe. If you are brewing with your friends, you may want to set the recipe into kettle mode and share it that way. The Brew Feature calculates four types of efficiency: If you are interested in tracking efficiency in detail, create a 'Brew Session'. It tracks conversion efficiency, pre-boil efficiency, ending kettle efficiency, and brew house efficiency! Each efficiency value flows to the next, and the value can only go down in subsequent steps. For more information see: How is efficiency calculated in a Brew Session? First time doing an All Grain batch? Congratulations! We suggest you start with a conservative efficiency value like 55-60% for your first All Grain batch. Raise it from there as you improve. If you exceed it, hey, you'll have a bit higher ABV - cheers! Recipe Design Notes:

Pre-Boil / Ending Kettle / Brew House Efficiency are NOT constant across recipes - it depends on your system AND the recipe. Efficiency is only constant for similar recipes (same amount of grain, same amount of hops), on the same equipment, with the same brewing practices.
For beers that use more grain (eg, high gravity beers), pre-boil efficiency, and subsequent efficiencies will be lower because of higher grain absorption. When brewing a high gravity beer make sure to pad in 5%, 10%, maybe even 20% efficiency loss depending on how strong your beer will be.
Hops absorption impacts Brew House Efficiency. A super hoppy beer may see a Brew House Efficiency reduction of 1-3%.
These adjustments are not estimated in the software at this moment, you will need to manually estimate for changes in gravity or highly hopped recipes.