{"id":1657,"date":"2015-03-13T14:01:45","date_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hellbach.us\/blog\/?p=1657"},"modified":"2015-03-13T14:01:45","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:01:45","slug":"balancing-your-brew-how-to-calculate-perceived-bitterness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hellbach.us\/blog\/food-drink\/beer\/balancing-your-brew-how-to-calculate-perceived-bitterness\/","title":{"rendered":"Balancing Your Brew: How To Calculate Perceived Bitterness"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' 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15:58:05&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:2126,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/learn.kegerator.com\\\/homebrewing-infographic&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20250702175703\\\/https:\\\/\\\/learn.kegerator.com\\\/homebrewing-infographic\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-11-19 01:19:12&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-22 15:58:05&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-25 07:49:14&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-25 07:49:14&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Beer Bitterness Levels\" src=\"http:\/\/learn.kegerator.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/beer-bitterness-levels.jpg\" alt=\"Beer Bitterness Levels\" \/><\/p>\n<p>One of the hardest facets of beer flavor to achieve is balance. Balancing the different flavors of beer is absolutely necessary to create a complex but drinkable beer. A failure to balance flavors will make a beer seem one-dimensional or, worse, undrinkable.<\/p>\n<p>In this article, we\u2019ll discuss how to strike a balance between the bitterness of the hops and the relative sweetness of the malt. While this is only one aspect of the overall balance of a beer, it is arguably the most important and the one which we have the best ability to predict with math.<\/p>\n<h2>The BU:GU Ratio<\/h2>\n<div class=\"photofloat30\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/learn.kegerator.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/homebrew-ingredients.png\" alt=\"Homebrew Ingredients\" \/><\/div>\n<p>In actuality, there is a lot more to balancing beer than just malt flavors versus hop bitterness, but we tend to simplify the problem down to this balance for a few simple reasons:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>IBUs make a handy placeholder for \u201chop flavor\u201d, while original gravity makes a handy, if somewhat unreliable, placeholder for \u201cmalt flavor\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>This gives us a one-to-one indicator of the balance.<\/li>\n<li>It makes it easy to bring it to a simple ratio.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Ray Daniels, in his book <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Designing-Great-Beers-Ultimate-Brewing\/dp\/0937381500\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Designing Great Beers<\/a><\/em>breaks this ratio down to a very simple Bitterness Units to Gravity Units ratio, commonly noted as BU:GU. The Bitterness Units are just the calculated IBUs of the beer. The Gravity Units are what you get when you subtract one from the Original Gravity and then multiply by 1000.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, let\u2019s say I\u2019m making a <a href=\"http:\/\/learn.kegerator.com\/types-of-pale-ale\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">pale ale<\/a> with 25 IBUs and an Original Gravity of 1.050. The BU:GU Ratio would be calculated as follows:<\/p>\n<div>30 IBUs \/ 50 GU = .6 BU:GU<\/div>\n<p>For an idea of how this benchmarks, let\u2019s take a look at how the 2008 BJCP Guidelines would benchmark. The acceptable ranges for Style Category 10A American Pale Ale are as follows:<\/p>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>OG:<\/strong> 1.045 \u2013 1.060<\/li>\n<li><strong>FG:<\/strong> 1.010 \u2013 1.015<\/li>\n<li><strong>IBU:<\/strong> 30 \u2013 45<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>Taking the middle of the range for IBUs and OG will give you a decent benchmark with which to work, so let\u2019s try 1.052 and 37 IBUs.<\/p>\n<div>37 IBUs \/ 52 GU = 0.71 BU:GU<\/div>\n<p>This is the basic way to get a sense of the bitterness balance of your beer, and it is used by a lot of homebrewers as a go-to method. Assuming you are using <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kegerator.com\/homebrew-ingredients\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">traditional ingredients<\/a> in your recipe, this will give you a good benchmark with which to check your beer against the style.<\/p>\n<h3>Adding Apparent Attenuation<\/h3>\n<p>Unfortunately, The BU:GU ratio by itself does not take into consideration the residual sweetness caused by unfermentable sugars. When you are comparing to existing style guidelines and using traditional ingredients, this is not a huge deal. However, if you are not brewing specifically to style or are using nontraditional ingredients, you will need to take into consideration the effect this may have on your beer. To do that, we need to bring Apparent Attenuation into the picture.<\/p>\n<p>If you are brewing to a specific style, you can once again leverage the style guidelines to pull out the typical apparent attenuation of the style and adjust the equation to pull that number in. This will adjust your Perceived Bitterness (PB in the equation) higher or lower compared to the average for that style.<\/p>\n<div class=\"center\"><strong>So, now we go from this:<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>BU\/GU = BU:GU<\/div>\n<div class=\"center\"><strong>To this:<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>PB = (BU\/GU) x (1 + (RAA-SAA))<\/div>\n<p>Where RAA is the Apparent Attenuation of your recipe and SAA is the typical Apparent Attenuation of the style. This formula will calculate the BU:GU ratio and then increase the number if the perceived bitterness will be higher and lower the value if the perceived bitterness will be lower.<\/p>\n<div class=\"photofloat30\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" alignright\" title=\"How To Calculate Perceived Bitterness in Your Homebrew\" src=\"http:\/\/learn.kegerator.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/perceived-bitterness.jpg\" alt=\"How To Calculate Perceived Bitterness in Your Homebrew\" width=\"133\" height=\"356\" \/><\/div>\n<p>The advantage of doing this is that it will help you to illustrate how the apparent attenuation can affect how you perceive bitterness even if your IBUs and gravity units stay exactly the same.<\/p>\n<h5>An example:<\/h5>\n<p>Let\u2019s resurrect our previous example and add apparent attenuation. If you\u2019ll remember, our pale ale finished with a BU:GU ratio of 0.71. Let\u2019s assume the final gravity finished at 1.010, which is the lower end of the spectrum for the style.<\/p>\n<p>First, we calculate the apparent attenuation using this equation:<\/p>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>RAA = (OG-FG)\/(OG-1)<\/li>\n<li>RAA = (1.050-1.010)\/(1.052-1)<\/li>\n<li>RAA = .040\/.050 = .80 or 80%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>Using this same equation, we can benchmark the style:<\/p>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>SAA = (1.052-1.013)\/(1.053-1)<\/li>\n<li>SAA = .039\/.053 = .735 or 73.5%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>If you are not brewing to style, you can leverage a style similar to what you\u2019d like to have or you can use the average apparent attenuation of all of the BJCP styles, 0.7655.<\/p>\n<p>So, the perceived bitterness equation for this batch would be as follows:<\/p>\n<div>PB = 0.6 x (1+(.8-.735)) = 0.6 x 1.065 = 0.639<\/div>\n<p>Compare this to the BU:GU of .6, and you\u2019ll see that because more of the sugars fermented out, the perception of the beer will be a little drier. By contrast, if the final gravity had ended a little higher at 1.013, this number would be slightly different.<\/p>\n<div>PB = 0.6 x (1+(.735-.735)) = 0.6 x 1 = 0.6<\/div>\n<p>You can tell how far the perceived bitterness strays from the style by how far the number differs from the BU:GU ratio. The perceived bitterness of this recipe would be closer to what the average would be for the style than our first example.<\/p>\n<p>That is not to say that the first recipe is out of style. It is within the style guidelines, but the end result will fall further on the bitter end of the spectrum than the \u201caverage\u201d American pale ale.<\/p>\n<h3>Perceived Bitterness Calculator<\/h3>\n<p>Now that we\u2019ve broken down the manual process for calculating the perceived bitterness of your brew, here is a calculator to help with the process. In the below calculator, we will use the estimated IBUs, Original Gravity, and Final Gravity to calculate perceived bitterness using the BU:GU Ratio from Ray Daniels and then using the formula to also factor in the average apparent attenuation of all BJCP styles.<\/p>\n<div id=\"PBCalc\">\n<p><script>\/\/ < ![CDATA[\nfunction perceivedBitternessCalc(form) { \t\/\/import values \tvar OG = form.OG.value; \tvar FG = form.FG.value; \tvar IBU = form.BU.value; \tvar PBConstant = form.PBC.value; \t\/\/calculate BU:GU as BU\/((OG-1)*100) \tvar BUGUCalc = IBU\/((OG-1)*1000); \t\/\/calculate apparent attenuation as [(OG-FG)\/(OG-1)]*100 \tvar appAttCalc = ((OG-FG)\/(OG-1)); \t\/\/calculate Perceived Bitterness as (BU:GU) x (1+(ADF - Constant)) \tvar perBitCalc = BUGUCalc*(1+(appAttCalc-PBConstant)); \t\/\/return values to output boxes \t\/\/alert(\"Alert :\" + perBitCalc); \tform.BUGU.value = BUGUCalc.toFixed(3); \tform.appAtt.value = appAttCalc.toFixed(3)*100 + \"%\"; \tform.perBit.value  = perBitCalc.toFixed(3); \treturn false; }\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/p>\n<form id=\"pbCalcForm\" name=\"CalcForm\"><label for=\"\">Original Gravity<\/label> <input id=\"OG\" form=\"pbCalcForm\" type=\"text\" \/><\/p>\n<p><label for=\"\">Final Gravity<\/label> <input id=\"FG\" form=\"pbCalcForm\" type=\"text\" \/><\/p>\n<p><label for=\"\">Calculated IBUs<\/label> <input id=\"BU\" form=\"pbCalcForm\" type=\"text\" \/><\/p>\n<p><label for=\"\">Comparison Style<\/label><select id=\"PBC\" name=\"PBC\"><option value=\".7655\">76.55% Average BJCP Value<\/option><option value=\".9090\">90.90% Lite American Lager 01A<\/option><option value=\".8386\">83.86% Standard American Lager 01B<\/option><option value=\".7960\">79.60% Premium American Lager 01C<\/option><option value=\".7838\">78.38% Munich Helles 01D<\/option><option value=\".7502\">75.02% Dortmunder Export 01E<\/option><option value=\".7685\">76.85% German Pilsner (Pils) 02A<\/option><option value=\".6897\">68.97% Bohemian Pilsener 02B<\/option><option value=\".7502\">75.02% Classic American Pilsner 02C<\/option><option value=\".7461\">74.61% Vienna Lager 03A<\/option><option value=\".7281\">72.81% Oktoberfest\/Marzen 03B<\/option><option value=\".7921\">79.21% Dark American Lager 04A<\/option><option value=\".7404\">74.04% Munich Dunkel 04B<\/option><option value=\".7253\">72.53% Schwarzbier (Black Beer) 04C<\/option><option value=\".7755\">77.55% Maibock\/Helles Bock 05A<\/option><option value=\".7527\">75.27% Traditional Bock 05B<\/option><option value=\".7673\">76.73% Doppelbock 05C<\/option><option value=\".7029\">70.29% Eisbock 05D<\/option><option value=\".8072\">80.72% Cream Ale 06A<\/option><option value=\".7637\">76.37% Blonde Ale 06B<\/option><option value=\".8013\">80.13% Kolsch 06C<\/option><option value=\".7709\">77.09% American Wheat or Rye Beer 06D<\/option><option value=\".7407\">74.07% Northern German Altbier 07A<\/option><option value=\".7456\">74.56% California Common Beer 07B<\/option><option value=\".7407\">74.07% Dusseldorf Altbier 07C<\/option><option value=\".7433\">74.33% Standard\/Ordinary Bitter 08A<\/option><option value=\".7651\">76.51% Special\/Best\/Premium Bitter 08B<\/option><option value=\".7495\">74.95% Extra Special\/Strong Bitter 08C<\/option><option value=\".6388\">63.88% Scottish Light 60\/- 09A<\/option><option value=\".6584\">65.84% Scottish Heavy 70\/- 09B<\/option><option value=\".7141\">71.41% Scottish Export 80\/- 09C<\/option><option value=\".7601\">76.01% Irish Red Ale 09D<\/option><option value=\".6075\">60.75% Strong Scotch Ale 09E<\/option><option value=\".7525\">75.25% American Pale Ale 10A<\/option><option value=\".7525\">75.25% American Amber Ale 10B<\/option><option value=\".7427\">74.27% American Brown Ale 10C<\/option><option value=\".6840\">68.40% Mild 11A<\/option><option value=\".6584\">65.84% Southern English Brown Ale 11B<\/option><option value=\".7637\">76.37% Northern English Brown Ale 11C<\/option><option value=\".7526\">75.26% Brown Porter 12A<\/option><option value=\".7418\">74.18% Robust Porter 12B<\/option><option value=\".7190\">71.90% Baltic Porter 12C<\/option><option value=\".7836\">78.36% Dry Stout 13A<\/option><option value=\".6423\">64.23% Sweet Stout 13B<\/option><option value=\".7418\">74.18% Oatmeal Stout 13C<\/option><option value=\".7764\">77.54% Foreign Extra Stout 13D<\/option><option value=\".7323\">73.23% American Stout 13E<\/option><option value=\".7299\">72.99% Imperial Stout 13F<\/option><option value=\".7653\">76.53% English IPA 14A<\/option><option value=\".7754\">77.54% American IPA 14B<\/option><option value=\".8061\">80.61% Imperial IPA 14C<\/option><option value=\".7411\">74.11% Weizen\/Weissbier 15A<\/option><option value=\".7510\">75.10% Dunkelweizen 15B<\/option><option value=\".7459\">74.59% Weizenbock 15C<\/option><option value=\".7556\">75.56% Roggenbier (German Rye) 15D<\/option><option value=\".7838\">78.38% Witbier 16A<\/option><option value=\".7556\">75.56% Belgian Pale Ale 16B<\/option><option value=\".8700\">87.00% Saison 16C<\/option><option value=\".8187\">81.87% Biere de Garde 16D<\/option><option value=\".8462\">84.62% Berliner Weisse 17A<\/option><option value=\".8606\">86.06% Flanders Red Ale 17B<\/option><option value=\".8164\">81.64% Flanders Brown Ale\/Oud Bruin 17C<\/option><option value=\".8781\">87.81% Straight (Unblended) Lambic 17D<\/option><option value=\".9372\">93.72% Gueuze 17E<\/option><option value=\".8955\">89.55% Fruit Lambic 17F<\/option><option value=\".7988\">79.98% Belgian Blond Ale 18A<\/option><option value=\".7998\">79.98% Belgian Dubbel 18B<\/option><option value=\".8531\">85.31% Belgian Tripel 18C<\/option><option value=\".8637\">86.37% Belgian Golden Strong Ale 18D<\/option><option value=\".8026\">80.26% Belgian Dark Strong Ale 18E<\/option><option value=\".7396\">73.96% Old Ale 19A<\/option><option value=\".7422\">74.22% English Barleywine 19B<\/option><option value=\".7527\">75.27% American Barleywine 19C<\/option><option value=\".7281\">72.81% Classic Rauchbier 22A<\/option><\/select><\/p>\n<p><input type=\"submit\" value=\"Submit\" \/><\/p>\n<p><label for=\"\">BU:GU Ratio:<\/label> <output id=\"BUGU\" for=\"\" form=\"pbCalcForm\"><\/output><\/p>\n<p><label for=\"\">Apparent Attenuation:<\/label> <output id=\"appAtt\" for=\"\" form=\"pbCalcForm\"><\/output><\/p>\n<p><label for=\"\">Perceived Bitterness Ratio:<\/label> <output id=\"perBit\" for=\"\" form=\"pbCalcForm\"><\/output><\/p>\n<\/form>\n<\/div>\n<h3>Using This to Brew at Home<\/h3>\n<p>This tool isn\u2019t necessary for most brewers, but will come in handy for you if you are <a href=\"http:\/\/learn.kegerator.com\/creating-a-homebrew-recipe\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">creating a recipe from scratch<\/a> or if you are working to refine a recipe to your palate. For instance, let\u2019s say you have a favorite pale ale recipe, but you want to fine tune the balance. The last time you brewed it, you found that it was a bit too sweet and you want to cut that down a little bit.<\/p>\n<p>You could brew it again and add hops, mash at a lower temperature, or reduce the amount of crystal malt, but how many degrees do you lower it, and how much malt should come out? Tinkering with your recipe and using software or calculations to predict the IBUs, OG, and FG can give you a new perceived bitterness number, and that number will give you a better idea of how your changes will affect the end result of the beer. It might still take some trial and error, but the number will help you get closer to your target the first time, and will help you refine it to the perfect beer in fewer attempts.<\/p>\n<p><em>from <a href=\"http:\/\/learn.kegerator.com\/how-to-calculate-perceived-bitterness\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Kegerator<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Also:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/learn.kegerator.com\/creating-a-homebrew-recipe\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">How to Create Your Own Homebrew Recipe<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/learn.kegerator.com\/specific-gravity\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Specific Gravity: How to Measure it When Brewing Beer<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/learn.kegerator.com\/what-i-learned-while-homebrewing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">What I\u2019ve Learned From a Lifetime of Homebrewing<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/learn.kegerator.com\/homebrewing-infographic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">INFOGRAPHIC: A Beginner\u2019s Guide to Homebrewing<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the hardest facets of beer flavor to achieve is balance. Balancing the different flavors of beer is absolutely necessary to create a complex but drinkable beer. A failure to balance flavors will make a beer seem one-dimensional or, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hellbach.us\/blog\/food-drink\/beer\/balancing-your-brew-how-to-calculate-perceived-bitterness\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beer"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Balancing Your Brew: How To Calculate Perceived Bitterness - Hellbach blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"a perfectly balanced beer is an art. 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