Pat, Probably something on my end, but, when I download the blank spreadsheet it will not save to a file for me. I will have to redownload again today as I did have 2 questions on the file.
J

Trying to get a handle on Section K. Why is SWN > TWN ? Is it because SWN is measured HOT and takes into account the expansion? IOW, If I heated the 19.09 L of water to my mash temp of, say, 68*C would it be ~equal to SWN?

Thanks, Bill

HbgBill wrote:Trying to get a handle on Section K. Why is SWN > TWN ? Is it because SWN is measured HOT and takes into account the expansion? IOW, If I heated the 19.09 L of water to my mash temp of, say, 68*C would it be ~equal to SWN?

Thanks, Bill

Right on the money, Bill

blancasterb wrote: Do we need to make this 0.4 adjustment in the PR1.3T BLANK file? Or just in the Amarillo file?

This is a global setting for grain absorption, so set it on the blank one too. (that is to say, it will match the other pre-release version PR1.3K)

Global may be the wrong terminology, anyways it is a fine grain (pun intended) adjustment to dial a brewers grain absorption, level of squeezing, not squeezing, etc...

These two pre-release versions will then match each other, given the same recipe.

Not knowing how this would will affect my numbers, I wonder if this is why I ended up with a lower OG than I expected? I was shooting for 1.065 and got 1.055.

In my ss. there is nothing in "X"

blancar first and Bill after...

blancasterb wrote:Do we need to make this 0.4 adjustment in the PR1.3T BLANK file? Or just in the Amarillo file?

You'd have to do that in both but here is a quick copy and paste from some behind the scenes stuff. Note that Sweet Liquor Retained by Grain is the same as Volume Loss from Lauter...

Sweet Liquor Retained by Grain:

When the grist (crushed grain) is added to hot liquor, some of the weight of the grist, most of that being sugars, dissolves into the hot liquor making it sweet. In this one sense, the grist loses weight when added to the hot liquor but, just like a sponge dipped in a bucket of water, the bag full of grist when removed from the kettle, retains some sweet liquor. The sweet liquor retained by grain in a traditional three vessel system is about 1 litre per kilogram of grain. In BIAB, it is less but can vary greatly from brewer to brewer and batch to batch.

0.6 litres of sweet liquor per kilogram of grain is the BIABacus default but a small grain bill (low batch size and or low gravity brew) in a bag is much easier to drain than a large grain bill. For example, a tea bag crushed in a fist is easier to 'wring dry' than squashing a towel between two hands. In other words, be open to variance.

Finally, you can go to extraordinary lengths, to wring bags of grist dry (or drain mash tuns) but going to such lengths should not be a focus. The extra sweet liquor gained for the manual effort involved can become a little silly. Ensure your brew day remains as comfortable as possible.

If you use yeast starters, you might like to rinse your BIAB bag with hot water and boil the sweet liquor gained on your kitchen stovetop for an hour. After boiling, you can freeze the wort for use later in your starter production.

HbgBill wrote:Not knowing how this would will affect my numbers, I wonder if this is why I ended up with a lower OG than I expected? I was shooting for 1.065 and got 1.055

The rule here Bill is, "never trust a single reading on a single brew". Unless you get consistently low readings over several brews, we can't assume/deduce anything. I imagine a search of this site on, 'single reading on a single brew' will come up with a lot of info.


PP

Hi there after a long time ...
I don't know if this is the right place for my comment .If it is'nt be free to move it on the apropriate thread .
I have tested the latest biabacus release T at my doughters android tablet with WPS free mobile office app and it seems to works .Whne I 've got some time I'll test it side by side with a PC and libre office.It's a pain to work with a 7" inch screen but it is quite prortable.
Just my 2 cents...

You can unlock the BIABacus in several ways but the real question is if you are wanting to do so, you are probably missing something really important in either your brewing process or your understanding of the BIABacus....

1. I can't think of any default that you can't easily over-ride.
2. If you are wanting to over-ride a default, the question is, "Should you be?"

Let me know the formula/s that aren't working out for you as something obvious might be getting missed by you or me!

Also, the formulas are far more complex than you'll find in other software as the BIABacus looks at the whole brew instead of compartmentalizing individual area of a brew. Great for the user but very difficult to program and in an unlocked spreadsheet, very easy to accidentally delete a hidden cell that might be crucial for many brewer's situations.


PP

No problems DrD and thanks for getting back to this thread. I have hardly any spare time atm but have chosen to reply to this thread while winding down for the day as replying here might help me later to write on how one should and should not go about designing recipes. I won't have time to double-check everything I write below so let me know if anything I write here does not read clearly or make sense so as I can tidy it or correct it when I get the chance...

The first thing to realise is that recipes need to be designed in your head/heart/senses first, not in a computer program.

...

A computer program's numbers, if written very carefully, (the BIABacus is the best you will get at time of writing) will still only give you four things even slightly relating to recipe design... original gravity 'points' (volume x gravity 'points'), final gravity 'points', colour (very low importance and very poor estimates) and bitterness (let's not even go there ). The BIABacus does the first better than any other software. It does all the others at least as well, usually better, than any other software but all these estimates are just estimates. The colour and bitterness formulas that all software uses, including the BIABacus, are extremely vague, often appalling.

When designing a recipe, the first thing you want to think of is, perhaps, the percentages of grains you want in your grain bill. That is what the left hand side of Section C is for. If you can't imagine, in your head, your grain bill as percentages, then you should not even be thinking of designing recipes in my view. Designing recipes is an advanced skill and depends on a lot of factors. (Btw, even if you do design a brilliant recipe, your next and far more complicated problem, if you were a commercial brewer, is working out how to replicate that recipe from week to week given the varying inputs/qualities of ingredients available.)

As for the hops, there is no great way, in brewing software of dealing with this highly complex subject. For a start, all the hop IBU estimate formulas we rely on, are old. Secondly, IBU's are only one part of recipe formulation. Flavour and aroma are far more important than IBU's but there are no formulas for these things. So, once again, unless you realise how vague IBU formulas are and their relative second place to flavour and aroma, in many, if not most, styles, you probably shouldn't be designing yet if that makes sense.

You mentioned above that you find the design invasive and restrictive. When you 'feel' this from the BIABacus, it is usually (hopefully) a sign that the way you are approaching your brewing/recipe formulation, isn't quite right. Hopefully some of the above explains this?

If not, the test of this is to write here, in detail, what you are finding invasive/restrictive and then we can see where we can design or educate or formulate better.

Nice question
PP

PistolPatch wrote: ...


When designing a recipe, the first thing you want to think of is, perhaps, the percentages of grains you want in your grain bill. That is what the left hand side of Section C is for.

PP

PP, I don't quite get this. I can't seem to enter percentages into my copy. All I can do is guess at weights and fiddle around until the match up with what I imagined. am I missing something?

Lylo, I found 0.xx doesn't work, and there is no % sign to use.....Try starting the Base Malt at 100, and when you a 33% caramel, change Base to 67 and caramel to 33.

That works for Libreoffice.

Also, I have done 3 parts base, 2 parts XXX, 1 part YYYY, .5 part ZZZZ

so it looks 3,2,1,.5 in section C, and BIABCAUS makes it 100% total, with Weight of each Ingredient for the Specific Gravity desired.

Maybe Just Windows 8.2 and LibreOffice works for me.

I do it the same way, just enter the percents as numbers, no % sign, and make sure they add up to 100. I use windows 7 with ms office, worked fine in 1.3k and now fine in 1.3t. This is how I do all my recipes.

Great idea guys. I knew I didn't need to bother PP with this, although your answers may have been a little too concise for his liking!

Lylo wrote: Great idea guys. I knew I didn't need to bother PP with this, although your answers may have been a little too concise for his liking!

Yep whatever you do, don't type in the symbol "%". Have no idea why but that really stuffs things up.

Also, I'll repeat this bit, "The first thing to realise is that recipes need to be designed in your head/heart/senses first, not in a computer program."

In other words, you should have thought through the percentages of your grain bill before you even type it into a program. The only thing a program can tell you re percentages is colour and that is about the lowest priority of all and can't be estimated very well anyway.

A piece of paper and a pen is the first port of call in recipe design. Does that make sense to everyone or have we all been brain-washed into thinking a computer program is what is needed for recipe design?


PP

Pistol Patch,

I am an Old Fart, who gave up that Pen and Paper thing 20 years ago.....

In America, Pencils are getting Difficult to Find, and Most Paper available, is for Computer Printers.

The BIABACUS is a Great "Not-a-Program" Spreadsheet to Design Recipes!!

I've seen some places where the issue has been discussed of running out of hop spaces in the Bacus, and as a hop head it's definitely happened to me. Until the final release of the Bacus how should this be handled? I saw a thread here where the dry hops end up being added as a "hop mix" with notes in section I. Looks like the alpha acids for each of the three hops were averaged and their weights were all combined.

That makes sense, but it's also just a dry hop so there's no bitterness to worry about. I've got an IPA I'm planning with three hops at each addition – FWH, 15, 10, 5, 2, 0, DH – would you recommend the same method of averaging alpha acids and combining weights for this type of bittering schedule? Luckily the ratios for each of the three hops are all 1:1:1, otherwise you'd need to get into weighted averages such as (.4)5.5%AA + (.4)10.2%AA + (.2)16%AA = 9.5%AA for a 1:1:1/2 type of ratio.

Am I on the right track, or will this line of thinking throw my bitterness off?

LaserGhost, Hop bitterness is not very Actuate, So ((Grams of Hops) Times (the %AA of Hop)) is a Number(HBU)... So, avearging them is not a problem.

In Section "I" you may be able to List all the Hops and grams used, so, the recipe can be re-brewed by Others.

Joshua is spot on.

The BIABacus will include a tool companion that will do this calculation for you.