I’ve tried searching the BJCP site for this information, but can’t find it.
Where can I get a list of their carbonation descriptions and what that translates into as volumes of CO2? So, when they say “medium-high to high carbonation” what is the range of CO2 volumes? Beersmith will warn me when I’m out of the range, but I hate having to put numbers in by trial and error.
I have beersmith 1.4 still but on that one it gives you the style guidlines down at the bottom of the recipe. You set the desired volume and beer temp and it tells you how much co2 or sugar to use.
Yes, it still does that, but to know that a volume is within the style guideline I have to just plug in a number then go higher/lower until I get the blue dot next to it. I was just wondering if there was a list somewhere, like who decided how many volumes medium-high carbonation was and why don’t they give an objective number?
hmm, with mine is shows you the range for the style. no guesswork. it just says that, for my scottish 60/- style guidlines are 1.9-2.4 (or whatever) and I tell it I want 2.1 and the beer is 63* and it says 3.5 oz corn sugar (or whatever)
Why would they, you can’t measure it or taste it at a homebrew contest.
Tastybrew has a nice bottle priming calculator that shows you the range for the various styles. I suppose you could correlate CO2vol against the corresponding BJCP descriptions.
Ah, ok I found it. It doesn’t show up by default, I had to add it from the list of fields on the design sheet. Thanks.
Well the descriptions have to correlate to something. I didn’t realize there was an option in beersmith to show the range for the style selected. I just wonder how he knows what that range is.
Oh really? I lost out on a BOS due to my brew being “slightly under carbonated”. It was the only “ding” against it.
I find that always calculates on the low side.
Yeah, but it was a subjective judgement. They didn’t measure your carb level.
How do you know, did you witness the BOS? Generally no notes are kept from the BOS table, at least not in our neck of the woods.
Lower than expected carbonation can cause a whole host of dings - appearance, aroma, flavor and mouthfeel can all be affected. In fact I often serve a nearly flat beer during the BJCP exam and the major flaw, carbonation, is always noted, but many other things can be underwhelming and notable when the carbonation level is too low.
But if that was your only ding I guess you scored a 49 on the score sheet 
No kidding. I was responding to “Why would they, you can’t measure it or taste it at a homebrew contest.” There is no taste/flavor to carbonation per se, but simply saying that you can’t taste it at a homebrew contest, is a bit confused.
I was not an eye witness, but I’m relying on the testimony of the Level III Master Judge who judged it and corresponded with me afterwards, as well as another judge who judged it, and was observing the BOS arguing, as well as the comp coordinator who was present. By “dings”, I mean there were no flaws noted on the scoresheet, or in the comments section. The brew scored in the low 40s, so I guess you’re right.
They don’t actually measure color, clarity, or many other characteristics either - but they score on it all.
He could have watched it. Lots of BoS panels are held in front of an audience.
Also, BoS panels can turn into endurance contests. It’s possible that the beer had the right level of CO2 to start with, but had gone flat 45 minutes later.
Amen!
Poor carbonation will mess up aroma perception because less stuff is outgassed, it will make flavor seem sweeter because of lack of CO2 “bite” and will make body seem heavier for the same reason. The surest way to turn a good beer from a contender to an also-ran is to undercarbonate it.
My guess for CO2 volumes is that any beer that the BJCP describes as having “low” carbonation should have less than 2 volumes of pressure. Anything with “medium” carbonation gets 2-2.5 and anything with high carbonation gets 2.5-3.0+ volumes.
As others have said, there are tables which list CO2 volumes for specific styles. Books and websites on commercial beer draft systems should have the info you need.
But my point is that we shouldn’t have to guess. They give specifics like starting gravity range but then are vague about carbonation. Some consistency there would be nice.
I did some searching but didn’t find anything. If you know of a site that has the list then please post it, I’d really appreciate that.
If I weren’t using Beersmith then I would be totally lost on how much to carbonate, and I shouldn’t have to use Beersmith (though I don’t think I could live without it…I’m spoiled!)
I never said you can’t taste a carbonation problem, I said you can’t taste 2.2vol CO2 vs 2.0. So the general description in BJCP is more appropriate in my opinion. Sorry if you were confused about my response, and thanks to Denny for responding in my absence.
Remember, the guidelines are there to assist in judging a beer. Helping brewers formulate recipes isn’t the BJCP’s job.
Then why list starting/ending gravities, ABV range, or IBU range when none of that can be measured by the judge other than subjectively? If they were consistent then alcohol and IBU’s would be listed as low/medium/high…or carbonation would be listed as a range of volumes.
I will email Brad Smith and ask where he got his list. I didn’t mean to start a debate about this, I was just looking for a simple set of numbers to guide me when reading the BJCP styles.
I just googled “beer carbonation chart by style” and found several charts that list CO2 volumes by broad style ranges.
Yeah, so did I but none of that information actually comes from BJCP and some of it is very broad. One of them lists belgian ales as 1.9 to 2.4 which is way lower than what Beersmith has, and Brewing Classic Styles lists many of them in the 3-4 range.