Remember the mantra, drink the Cool Aid ... Measurements on a single brew can never be trusted let alone a single measurement on a single brew.

PistolPatch wrote:Lol! I don't have time to write anything much tonight [Edit: Look how that turned out ] but the numbers in post #25 are not making much sense. In post #1, the actuals were 44.7 L @ 1.060 and then 30.7 L @ 1.091. Adjust that for the dextrose thing and we get 44.7 L @ 1.068 and 30.7 L @ 1.091. All's good.

BIABacus estimates are 44.2 @ 1.069 and 32.7 @ 1.090 so I am getting lost here. BIABacus estimates look fine. 2 litres out on 32 litres is nothing!

What a fun thread - can't believe I thought the 950 grams of dextrose was for priming . Anyway, some more loose ends...

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If you hang around here long enough Simon you'll hear that you cannot trust measurements from a single brew let alone a single measurement on a single brew. I should have picked this up at post #1 but totally missed it.

Well I definitely know this one! Always have, but it's still fun trying to get the numbers right!

Your actuals were fine and when you said above that you must have made some inaccurate measurements, you will do this on every brew. The more measurements you take, especially double-check ones, the faster you learn how true the paragraph above is.

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Before I go any further, I must say that this is the most complicated recipe to be using to discuss this sort of stuff. I have two screens here and BeerSmith and the BIABacus and I am full on struggling here. We should not be using a recipe with so many ingredients, including sugars added at different times when comparing two programs - one that has errors and the other that does not account for sugars!!!!

So, if anyone else is finding this very hard, including you Simon, I'm with you.

Ignoring the hop bill in this recipe, which is a tad insane yes, I wouldn't say the recipe is complicated? A base grain, three specialty grains, and some sugar in the boil to aid attenuation is a very simple recipe really? Not simple for Brew Calculators to design though it would seem, but certainly a very 'simple' recipe by itself, and not unusual in any way?

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Back to post #23. Remember the BIABacus atm assumes any fermentable is a grain. If we discount the dextrose, the BIABacus auto-estimate is not 69.5% but is closer to 73% at a very rough estimate. You scored 79% apparently (where did that number come from??? At a very quick glance I think you scored more like 68-71. But there are so many numbers floating around and so many files I have open (BeerSmith and BIABAcus) and posts here that I think we are a bit silly to invetstigate this further.

My 'actual' attenuation figure comes from inputting 44.67L 'Meas Pre-Boil Vol' and 1.060 'Meas Pre-Boil Gravity' into the Mash tab in Beersmith - maybe it does that calculation wrong too? Dunno, just quoted it as it displayed it. If it is wrong I may need to go looking for a separate efficiency calculator!

Remember the mantra, drink the Cool Aid ... Measurements on a single brew can never be trusted let alone a single measurement on a single brew.

Anyway, after this thread, I am nearly tempted to spend a month writing sugar calcs into the BIABacus - lol! On your next brew Simon.

Oh no! More Things!!!!

Just thought I could hang up and I saw a few more things. No, the difference between the 12 kg and ten kg grain bill is not explained by a kettle efficiency difference alone. Btw, I am reading 11.9 kg in your BeerSmith file and 13.1 in my BIABacus file.

My bad - I rounded up on the Beersmith file from 11.9 and my grain bill in BIABacus includes the Dextrose (same as the BS file) - my BIABacus file is in Post 23. 13956g

I think I'm going to stop at this point on the numbers as it is probably silly for us to go any further with them unless we all want to spend hours more on this.

Liquor to Grain Absorption Ratio

Finally, I have no idea on what is going on with your liquor to grain absorption ratio. Your BeerSmith file says in the 'Design' tab that you are using a 'BIAB, Light Body' mash. Now click on the 'Mash' tab and it says 'Fly sparge with 4.27l water at 75.6C' Now click on your 'Vols' tab and you'll see a one to one L/kg absorption ratio playing out.

Another thing I missed in BS! On the Mash tab, I should have clicked the BIAB profiles tab and changed it to 'BIAB Mash with full boil'. That eliminates the Fly Sparge wording, but doesn't change volumes, as it wasn't actually included in my mash steps anyway. Grain Absorption for me on the Vols tab shows 6.7L absorption for 10.952kg of grain (Dextrose not included here) - pretty much exactly the Beersmith BIAB absorption figure of 0.586 fl oz/oz (0.611 L/kg) - or am I interpreting the numbers wrong? I calculate my actual absorption at 0.393 L/kg and BIABacus I think estimates 0.545 L/kg for that file I uploaded on Post 23? Maybe my grain bag squeezing is a bit excessive?

Does any of that make sense to you?

You see Simon why I kick myself every time I get involved in a BeerSmith thread .


PP

SimonT wrote:11 grains though! Bugger bugger bugger!

Plus, the recipe's grain bill is stated in percentages, extra perfect for BIABacus!

Ignoring the hop bill in this recipe, which is a tad insane yes, I wouldn't say the recipe is complicated? A base grain, three specialty grains, and some sugar in the boil to aid attenuation is a very simple recipe really? Not simple for Brew Calculators to design though it would seem, but certainly a very 'simple' recipe by itself, and not unusual in any way?

If it is wrong I may need to go looking for a separate efficiency calculator!

Maybe my grain bag squeezing is a bit excessive?

BAH! If it wasn't 9am I'd be having a beer about now I think!!

PistolPatch wrote:

SimonT wrote:11 grains though! Bugger bugger bugger!

. Mate, where do you find these friggin' recipes????

Assuming you are happy to work with the default sextrct potential the BIABAcus uses for grains, what you'd have to do on this one is just put in the total grain bill say 5000 grams and note what appears on the right, maybe 6000 grams. Then you'd have to go and multiply all the individula grains by 1.2 .

I have never, ever, ever, ever ,ever, ever, ever..... ever heard of a recipe with 11 grains.

I love how you turned a discussion about beer sexy! Sextrct! Love it! And yes, 11 grains is a lot right!?!? But just a recipe I found browsing the ewebs - from Homebrewtalk no less! Sounded complex and awesome so I decided it was worth trying!

Plus, the recipe's grain bill is stated in percentages, extra perfect for BIABacus!

I generally prefer people to enter the weights on the left if they have them. It gives more info. Putting in percentages, if you have access to weights, just results in two columns on the left saying the same thing. So, in nearly every recipe 'copying' situation go for weights.

Ignoring the hop bill in this recipe, which is a tad insane yes, I wouldn't say the recipe is complicated? A base grain, three specialty grains, and some sugar in the boil to aid attenuation is a very simple recipe really? Not simple for Brew Calculators to design though it would seem, but certainly a very 'simple' recipe by itself, and not unusual in any way?

Pretty hard for a poor bugger like me who comes home from long hard days at work and has to backtrack through a heap of numbers and grains/sugars including dextrose and dextrin . I wasn't saying it is a complex recipe, I was saying it is not a good one to explore the differences in two programs that both have certain shortfalls - one has errors and one has a limited platform.

We wouldn't be exploring the shortfalls of both programs if the recipe didn't have sugars added to the boil, but I get your point! The thing is, lots of recipes, especially in certain styles, have sugars added to the boil.

For educational/learning purposes on numbers, you really need to begin with very simple recipes that contain no sugars. For example, understanding why the BIABacus wants you to use more grain/fermentables than Beersmith in this situation would take paragraphs to explain but look at the following files which I've adjusted to firstly ensure the same kettle trub losses are being used, the same kettle efficiency is being used, BeerSmith errors are compensated for and the BIABacus's lack of handling sugars well is compensated for and you'll see that BeerSmith and the BIABacus want pretty much exactly the same grain bill from you. (The very small error is due to the BIABacus using a slightly higher level of accuracy for the value of pure sugar.)

BIABacus PR1.3 - PTY - Extract Removed.xls

PTY - Extract Removed.bsm

If it is wrong I may need to go looking for a separate efficiency calculator!

Have a look at the above files and look at the efficiency numbers. By the way, in the BIABacus, you just go to Section P. In BeerSmith, you will have to look at the Mash tab and the Fermentation tab and then work out what Efficiency readings are estimates, what are actuals, whether the terminology means a kettle efficiency or a fermentor efficiency etc,.

Got that sorted?

If so, you will see that the BIABacus and BeerSmith2's post-boil efficiencies match at 78% but the pore-boil efficiencies do not match. The BIABacus says 76% while BeerSmith says 79% (you'll have to look at the mash tab to find that one). Why the difference? Because BeerSmith has forgotten to shrink the pre-boil volume by 4%.

Correct the BeerSmith error and 79% becomes 76%.

(By the way, as a matter of interest, if you remove the 72% in Section X, you'll see that the BIABacus estimated a 74% kettle efficiency for you. Not bad, eh?)

Maybe my grain bag squeezing is a bit excessive?

BIABrewer determined the default liquor retained by grain numbers by collecting quite a few brewers numbers. BIABrewer has passed on those numbers to BeerSmith so the number should be the same. Like evaporation though, your system might vary but only for two reasons I think... porosity of the bag and how much time (or pressure) you give the bag to drain.

The main thing when measuring your liquor retained by grain number (just saw the BIABacus terminology on this is a bit dodgy atm - need to fix) is that you measure volumes not weights. Often pedantic people, (yep, I did this too ) weigh the bag after draining. Don't do that.

BAH! If it wasn't 9am I'd be having a beer about now I think!!

BobBrews has told us all that it is perfectly acceptable to drink at 9am. He knows best.

Please accept my apologies Simon but please take the above as being my last essay style post in this thread for the moment. This thread could go on and on but I think already there are some points above that may have been missed or at least could give anyone something to study. Please also send BIABrewer a massive donation so as I don't get into trouble for spending all this week on this thread - I am meant to be working on BIABacus stuff .


PP

P.S. These threads are actually very valuable Simon and do help. There's just a stage I suppose where we have to make sure the value does not get lost/forgotten and the info gets turned into a form that everyone can access - even sugar brewers maybe one day .

Sugar brewers? You mean brewers who want to emulate valid and well-established styles yes?

BobBrews has told us all that it is perfectly acceptable to drink at 9am. He knows best.

SimonT wrote:BTW - donation done, I owe at least something! Nowhere near massive though, sorry about that :-(

BobBrews wrote:Finally I get some credit around here!... I have beer before breakfast each and every day! Next week I will go back on my "BeerFast"!