How To Use Brewing.It
A quick start guide to the recipe builder
Add your grains, hops, and yeast. We calculate everything else: gravity, ABV, bitterness, color, mash pH, water volumes, nutrition, and more. Every number updates in real time as you change your recipe.
Set Up Your System First
Before the numbers mean anything, the builder needs to know about your equipment. Three things matter most: batch size (how much finished beer you want to end up with), mash efficiency (how well your system extracts sugar, start at 70–75% if you're new), and boil time.
Batch size = finished beer
Most recipes and tools (including the BeerXML standard) define “batch size” as the volume going into the fermenter. We define it as how much finished beer you want to end up with. We then work backwards, adding fermenter loss and trub loss on top to calculate how much to actually brew.
In practice the difference is small (roughly 0.5L for most setups), but it's worth knowing. If you import a recipe where “20L” was meant as fermenter volume, your water calculations will be slightly higher than intended. Just adjust the batch size down after importing.
If you consistently hit higher or lower OG than predicted, tweak your efficiency number. After 3–4 brews you'll have it dialed in. Advanced settings let you set boil-off rate, kettle deadspace, and other system-specific losses for more precise water volume calculations.
Building a Recipe
The builder walks you through 10 sections. You don't have to fill them all in. Just grains, hops, and yeast are enough to get useful numbers. The rest adds precision.
Pick a BJCP style first. When you select a style (like “American IPA” or “German Pilsner”), the builder shows you the guidelines for that style: target ranges for OG, FG, IBU, SRM, and ABV. As you build your recipe, you can see at a glance whether your numbers fall within the style or not. It's like having guardrails. You know the boundaries you're working within, and you can choose to stay inside them or deliberately push past them.
Your grain bill determines OG, color, and how fermentable the wort is. The mash schedule controls body and final gravity. Lower temps produce drier beer, higher temps produce fuller body.
The hops section calculates IBU and flavor profile from every addition type. The yeast section tells you if you need a starter based on your OG and package date.
If you want to dial in your water, the water chemistry section lets you set a source and target profile. Choose a BJCP style target or set custom ion levels, then hit Auto-Calculate and we solve for the optimal salt additions using a least-squares optimizer.
On Brew Day
Everything the builder produces is a target, not a guarantee. Your OG might come in a few points high. Your pre-boil volume might be off by half a liter. That's normal. Brewing is a physical process and every system is a little different.
Think of it like cooking: a recipe gives you proportions and temperatures, but a good cook still tastes and adjusts. The same applies here. Measure your actual numbers and adapt.
Measure → adjust → learn your system
Pre-boil gravity too high? Use the dilution calculator to figure out how much water to add.
Pre-boil gravity too low? Use the boil-off calculator to see how much longer to boil, or add DME.
Consistently hitting different numbers than predicted? Adjust your mash efficiency in the equipment section. After 3–4 brews you'll have it dialed in and the predictions will be very close.
The standalone calculators page has quick tools for exactly this: ABV from gravity readings, dilution, boil-off, hydrometer correction, and carbonation. They're designed for brew-day use when you need a fast answer without opening the full builder.
What We Calculate
Here's everything the builder produces from your recipe. Each one has a dedicated page in this Learn section if you want to understand how it works.
OG, FG & ABV : gravity from your grain bill, predicted final gravity from yeast attenuation, and alcohol content
IBU : bitterness from every hop addition type (boil, whirlpool, dry hop, first wort, mash)
SRM : beer color from grain bill composition
Hop flavor profile : a 9-axis radar showing the shape of your hop character
Mash pH : predicted from grain and water chemistry, with adjustment recommendations
Yeast starter : cell counts, viability, and multi-step starter plans
Water volumes : mash water, sparge water, pre-boil volume, and strike temperature
Nutrition : calories and carbs per serving
Carbonation : priming sugar amounts or keg PSI for your target CO₂ volumes
See all the numbers come together in real time.
Start building a recipe