I'm trying to follow the instructions to post a Recipe Report.. but having trouble.. Do the instructions work for Mac or only Windows computers? I was able to highlight the area to include in the post but When I hit Ctrl-C I got a pop-up that said cell protected.

HbgBill wrote:Thanks for staying with me...

Thanks for putting up with my posts of yesterday - sometimes other software drives me mad. (You'd never guess though would you? ) You are interfacing fine Bill .

In fact, you have been doing really well. You've picked up the BIABacus really quickly as well as grappled with some of the other things in this thread that are pretty hard. So, good on you .

I'm not too sure what to advise on posting the Recipe Report. Maybe let us know what operating system and software you are using and maybe we can find out if anyone else is having the same problem.

SeattleVet wrote:Here's the recipe report from BIABacus 1.3. Let me know if there are any glaring problems/errors that I need to take into account:

Hi there SV ,

If you want some advice on the recipe itself, feel free to put the report up in a thread of its own as some members who are good on that side of things may miss it here. Only thing I am thinking is maybe just add more pale malt instead of the DME?

Your BIABacus file looks great . Here are a few things I noticed...

1. The file has lost its protection. Maybe it was saved out of .xls form at some stage?

2. The mash volume is pretty close to your kettle size so maybe hold back 4 or 5 L. You can put those litres into Section W.

3. If you do keep the DME in the recipe, go down to Section Y and beside DME type in 95 for FGDB and 4 for MC. That will over-ride the BIABacus default. Good to do for extracts and sugars.

4. Consider doing a mash-out in Section E if you can do it easily.

5. Maybe type in your chilling method in Section G.

I think that's it. Checklist looks great too! Good stuff!
PP

metalhophead wrote:I finally procured the bsm file! The reason I never posted them before was because Beersmith is on my fiance's computer. I believe I have figured it out. so 11.44 gallons is the eobv and the brewer has .46 less as the amount after cooling. So the Eobv-a issssssss 10.98 gallons (10.98 gallons=41.56 liters However when I used the biabicus conversion (11.44 gallons=43.31 liters) and converted it to ambient I got 41.64. I think the minor difference is because the two different programs calculated slghtly different, but they are close enough that is negligible. Am I right?

Metalhophead Fred

Good on you Fred .

Fred, sorry I didn't get to this yesterday but I actually want to open that .bsm file up and post a few pics to explain a couple of other things. My brain is still recovering from ProMash though today so I'll leave the pics etc until tomorrow .

For now though, yep, you are right on the small discrepancy. BeerSmith uses a straight 4% for shrinkage (e.g. 0.96) whereas the BIABacus uses 0.9614. The other reason why you are getting a small discrepancy is in rounding. The larger units you can use (eg litres) the more this is reduced.

The coriander and orange peel.

As these are both being added a few mins before the end of the boil, we can treat the volume to work off as being the EOBV-A. As you worked out, the EOBV-A of the original recipe is 41.6 L. Your EOBV-A (from Section K of your BIABAcus file) is 11.04 L.

The original recipe uses 1.5 oz of each (42.52 grams). So you should use...

42.52 * 11.04 / 41.6 = 11.28 grams (0.40 ozs)

Thanks for posting that .bsm file Fred. I'll write a bit more on that tomorrow with some pics.


PP

Good day all..

PP, I am using iOS X.6.8

So, if anyone knows the secret to posting the secret to posting the "Recipe Report" from a Apple Mac with the above software.. I'd appreciate the tip.

I was able to follow the instructions to "highlight" the lines to copy.. but, I was not able to "Cut and Past" to a message as PP asked me to do.. using the Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V per instructions.

Possibly the Mac has a different "cut and paste" if that is what Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V do on a PC. My usual method is to drag to highlight and right click to copy and paste.

Thanks all.

Per request.. first attempt to copy Recipe Report. Let me know if there are changes suggested.

Couple of questions tho.. under Chilling and Management..

I usually put the IC into the pot at 10 minutes along with the IrishMoss/Whirlfloc and the Yeast Nutrient. At FlameOut, I usually toss in additional hops, and start the chiller. After pulling the chiller, I whirlpool for a few minutes, cover and let it sit for about 20-30 minutes before racking to the fermenter. Is there a conventional/recommended way to add those notes to the spreadsheet?

Looking at the report below.. should I have entered "0" (zero) for Chilling Method.. ie start chilling at the end of the boil?
Also, for Whirlpool.. I do that after I pull the chiller.. ie, when the wort reaches 65-68*F. I probably won't ever have a specific time value to put there.

Thanks again for all the help.. Bill


[center]BIABacus Pre-Release 1.3 RECIPE REPORT[/center]
[center]BIAB Recipe Designer, Calculator and Scaler.[/center]
[center](Please visit http://www.biabrewer.info" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for the latest version.)[/center]
[center]Tori's APA - Batch 1[/center]

Recipe Overview

Brewer: HopSing
Style: APA
Source Recipe Link:

Original Gravity (OG): 1.058
IBU's (Tinseth): 34.3
Bitterness to Gravity Ratio: 0.59
Colour: 18.7 EBC = 9.5 SRM
ABV%: 5.61

Efficiency into Kettle (EIK): 82.7 %
Efficiency into Fermentor (EIF): 74.5 %

Note: This is a Pure BIAB (Full Volume Mash)

Times and Temperatures

Mash: 90 mins at 67 C = 152.6 F
Boil: 60 min
Ferment: 10 days at 18 C = 64.4 F

Volumes & Gravities

Total Water Needed (TWN): 16.99 L = 4.49 G
Volume into Kettle (VIK): 15.92 L = 4.2 G @ 1.043
End of Boil Volume - Ambient (EOBV-A): 11.34 L = 3 G @ 1.058
Volume into Fermentor (VIF): 10.22 L = 2.7 G @ 1.058
Volume into Packaging (VIP): 9.84 L = 2.6 G @ 1.015 assuming apparent attenuation of 75 %

The Grain Bill (Also includes extracts, sugars and adjuncts)

45.5% Marris Otter (8 EBC = 4.1 SRM) 1222 grams = 2.69 pounds
27.3% Vienna (6 EBC = 3 SRM) 733 grams = 1.61 pounds
18.2% Munich (12 EBC = 6.1 SRM) 489 grams = 1.08 pounds
4.5% Crystal 20L (43 EBC = 21.8 SRM) 122 grams = 0.27 pounds
4.5% Crystal 60L (118 EBC = 59.9 SRM) 122 grams = 0.27 pounds


The Hop Bill (Based on Tinseth Formula)

16.8 IBU Cascade Pellets (5.7%AA) 14.2 grams = 0.5 ounces at 60 mins
9.7 IBU Cascade Pellets (5.7%AA) 10.6 grams = 0.375 ounces at 30 mins
6.1 IBU Cascade Pellets (5.7%AA) 14.2 grams = 0.5 ounces at 10 mins
1.7 IBU Cascade Pellets (5.7%AA) 7.1 grams = 0.25 ounces at 5 mins
0 IBU Cascade Pellets (5.7%AA) 7.1 grams = 0.25 ounces at 0 mins
0 IBU Cascade Pellets (5.7%AA) 14.2 grams = 0.5 ounces at 0 mins (Dry Hopped)


Mash Steps

Mash Type: Pure BIAB (Full Volume Mash) for 90 mins at 67 C = 152.6 F
Mashout for for 10 mins at 75.6 C = 168.08 F


Miscellaneous Ingredients

½ tsp Yeast Nutrient (Boil) 10 Mins - Feed yeast for good start
½ tab WhirlFloc (Boil 10) Mins - Help clarify the beer


Chilling & Hop Management Methods

Hopsock Used: Y (Pulled 0 mins after boil end.)
Whirlpool: 5 mins after boil end.
Chilling Method: Immersion Chiller (Employed 0 mins after boil end.)

Fermentation& Conditioning

Fermention: US-05 for 10 days at 18 C = 64.4 F

Secondary Used: N
Crash-Chilled: Y
Filtered: N
Req. Volumes of CO2: 2.5
Serving Temp: 5 C = 41 F
Condition for 10 days.
Consume within 2 months.

HbgBill

You've posted that report perfectly Bill . (Only things I can think of are maybe removing the 'Special Instructions/Notes on this Beer' bit as there are none as well as the blank line in the middle of the 'Mash Steps. Small stuff!)

How did you manage to get it copying and pasting for you in the end?

Re the other questions...

You could put "Add Immersion Chiller" into the Miscellaneous section or The Checklist. I'd probably go for Miscelleaneous.

If you turn the chiller on at flame-out then, yes, type in O mins.

Whirlpool section is a bit ambiguous Bill. What I think we were looking for there is when you start the whirlpool but, as you've noted, if you do a cold whirlpool there is no telling how long the chill will take. So, I haven't got a good answer for what to put in there. Maybe type in "AC" for now, meaning 'after-chill'. Maybe that will end up being a way around it that we can put in the help?

Thanks for that Bill. One goal of The BIABacus is to remove as much ambiguity as possible. That is definitely an ambiguous thing atm so...


PP

SeattleVet

1. If you are using LibreOffice or OpenOffice, you will always have to use, "Save As," and then save the file as an .xls file. Any time the BIABacus strays from the .xls format, it tends to corrupt the protection and/or cause problems for other users unfortunately.

2. The earlier you add the water the better so add it before the boil starts. If you do add a number into, 'Water Added Before the Boil,' you will notice you will need more grain as your 'Efficiency into Kettle (EIK)' will drop as not as much water will 'see' the grain. It shouldn't be by much in your case*.

3. Sounds sensible to me.

4. If you add any sort of minute value (even 0) to the Mash-out step, the BIABaci's auto-estimate for EIK will increase a tad*.

5. Cool! (Excuse the pun ).

* As you play with these fields, watch the right hand side of the grain bill. This will tell you how much grain a change in process might cost or save you. Note that typing a value into 'Water Used in a Sparge' will not change the grain bill as that water 'sees' the grain.

Have fun on Wednesday ,
PP

HbgBill and SeattleVet, see posts immediately above re your questions.

The following post relates to a comment I made at the beginning of this post. What I thought would take one long post is going to take two as the below needs to be understood first - see the P.S. (Maybe it can add as another practice run for the BIABacus help? If anything does/doesn't make sense, please let us know.)

[center]What is 'End of Boil Volume at Ambient Temperature (EOBV-A)'?[/center]
EOBV-A is the volume of wort at the end of the boil once it is cooled to ambient temperature. It is the most critical volume number to convey in brewing as all other numbers work backward and forward from this figure. There are several ways it can be measured but only two ways it can be entered easily in the BIABacus...

Measurement Method 1 - Can be entered easily.

Measure the volume of the wort at flame-out and multiply that value by 0.9614 to adjust for wort shrinkage. The BIABacus will do this calculation for you if you enter the volume you measure at the end of the boil and record it in Section L under 'End of Boil Volume (EOBV)'. The picture below shows how a volume of 24.3 L measured at the end of the boil should become 23.36 L once cooled to ambient.The disadvantage of this method is that measuring volumes at near boiling temps tends to be a bit difficult as the wort tends to not sit still. In addition, some brewers place a chiller in the wort before the end of the boil and this makes any volume reading higher than it really is.

The BIABacus gives this measurement a lower priority than Method 3.

Measurement Method 2

The next method involves simply measuring the volume of the wort in the kettle once it has chilled. This sounds simple and sensible but in some set-ups it can be impractical.

Firstly the wort needs to remain sterile at this stage so the use of a dipstick and the exposure of the wort to air may impose unnecessary risk. Secondly, as with Method 1, many brewers have a chiller submerged in the wort at this stage and the addition of a chiller makes any volume reading higher than it really is.

If you are able to use this method, you will notice that there is nowhere in the BIABacus that you can record it as the EOBV-A field is protected. There are several reasons why this is so and several ways around it. We will come back to this.

Method 3 - Can be entered easily and over-rides Method 1.

EOBV-A may also be measured by adding two other measurements together. These other measurements are...

A. 'Kettle to Fermentor Loss (KFL)': This is the volume of 'wet' trub including all the hop debris (including what is in a hop-sock, if used) that remains in the kettle after you have transferred to your fermentor. The easiest way to measure this is to pour what remains in your kettle (and hop-sock) into a large measuring jug.

B. 'Volume into Fermentor (VIF)': This can usually be easily read from the marks that come with a plastic fermentor or, if you have a carboy, from marks you will have made on the carboy if you have calibrated it.

You can input these numbers into the BIABacus as follows...The disadvantages of this method are really only if your jug or fermentor is not calibrated correctly. Be aware that even the engraved marks on fermentors and jugs can be wrong. Check them!

What if I use both Method 1 and 3?

If you use both Method 1 and 3, the BIABacus will calculate your EOBV-A from Method 3. In other words, if a KFL and VIF value are entered into the BIABacus, it will add these numbers together and display them in the EOBV-A field.

The reason for this is that Method 3 is generally of higher accuracy than Method 1.

What if I used Method 2?

The BIABacus tries to allow a tremendous amount of flexibility. It also aims towards 'best practice'. If you only used Method 2 and took no KFL or VIF measurement, you would have to type 0 into the KFL field and type your EOBV-A measurement into VIF. In other words, your BIABacus would look something like this...The above is not 'best practice' though.

If you used Method 2 but also took a KFL measurement then simple maths will allow you to determine VIF and you can enter that figure. Or, if used Method 2 and took a VIF measurement, simple maths will tell you your KFL.

What Method/s Should I Use?

Hopefully the above shows how much flexibility the BIABacus allows to measure and record EOBV-A. [EDIT: Even more variations can be found here.] A brewer could use all three methods if they wanted to or just one. On a first brew, even one measurement can be asking too much.

Taking too many measurements and over-analysing the results is an error. Taking one or no measurements can also be an error. Occasionally, no matter what your level of experience, when you get time, it never hurts to take a few extra readings on a brew. When you do this, you will nearly always find a discrepancy. If the discrepancy repeats itself, on average, over several brews, then this warrants further investigation.

A new brewer should not fret about missing or forgetting all measurements. That is very common. Method 3 is the least time-dependent and most accurate so, new brewers should add measuring KFL and VIF to their checklist and see if they can record these.

My numbers don't add up!

As mentioned above, the BIABacus design allows flexibility in the fact that if you miss a measurement, there is usually an opportunity to gain that information in a different way further down the line. In other words, there is a series of double-checks.

Theoretically, all the actual measurements we take on a brew should 'mathematically' add up. A brewer experienced in measurement knows that this is not the case. There is always variance in measurements on a single brew day and even more variance from one brew day to another.

So, over and beyond the above, you should not expect your actual numbers to exactly match the numbers predicted by software (including the BIABacus). Whilst the design and formulas of the BIABacus will give you far better estimates than any existing software, if you are matching those estimates on every brew, that is a little suspicious .

The main point of recording actuals is to do them honestly, when convenient, over a period of time. Take an interest in them but don't obsess about them.

Totally ignore discrepancies under 5%. If over 5%, take a note and see if they repeat on the next few brews. If the discrepancy continually occurs in the same 'direction' then the time you have spent recording those numbers will make the identification of a brewing process problem (or adjustment of a BIABacus default) very easy.

That is the only value of actual numbers.


PP

P.S. Originally I meant to write a few hints on how to find the EOBV-A of a BeerSmith recipe if you own the program or if you are lucky enough to stumble across a few very rare BS recipe reports. Think I'll leave that for another day. Would also like to know if the above reads okay or if anything is unclear before writing the BeerSmith stuff.

This file relates to these posts over here - "BIABacus Pre-Release - Your First Impressions"
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1869&p=29021#p29021
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1869&p=29021#p29044 Mad Scientist American Rogue Dead Guy Clone

What's this respectfully business Stew? Your posts are always great.

I can't see any errors in the file at all. You are designing a recipe so EOBV-A in Section C equals EOBV-A in Section K. Perfect! Can't help you with the actual ingredients etc as I never brew wits sorry.

Dealing with Batch Variations?

The batch variation question is a very good one. If the BIABacus was written in code, I can visualise a 'software' solution to this problem*. For now, the current BIABacus spreadsheet allows a slightly better solution than existing software but it is still very limited. The current BIABacus spreadsheet will allow you to substitute the hops or the grains from the original batch but that is where it ends.

And, you are right, you still have to print out the Recipe Report from Batch 0 and Batch x to compare them.

* The perfect software solution though, as far as I can see, will still be totally reliant on you taking detailed notes and observations. In other words, the solution I can see will be nothing but a gimmick unless it is accompanied by the brewer writing detailed notes.

For now, I'd perhaps make up a spreadsheet summary of each batch of a recipe you do with notes on the major changes you have made and how the beer turned out. After so many batches, you might like to replace "Batch 0" with an updated version. When you do this, just rename the old bath zero to something like "Dim-Wit - Batch 0 - Retired 1" and then move it to a retired directory.

I don't think we have ever addressed this before Stew so great question again .

Writing the above has made me realise just how important the naming of your files is. No software is going to name your recipes for you. We definitely need some more thinking done on how best to name and deal with recipe files regardless of the program you use.


PP

This is just a quick note to let you know I have read your posts above but won't be able to reply properly to them for a few days, maybe more maybe less. I have had a non-brewing project pop up in the last few days that is requiring some complicated thinking and time. Getting there and looking forward to replying properly as soon as I can.


PP

PistolPatch wrote:I have had a non-brewing project pop up in the last few days that is requiring some complicated thinking and time.

PP

I heard PP's buying a new car. He's maybe off cruising chicks. Might not see him for a bit. That's my theory. Unless anyone can come up with a better one

Nice car.. forget about the chicks

That looks like a monster Mtate!

I reckon Bobbrews would be proud of that
The only problem i noticed BTW was mashing at 152C (305.6F)

mtate75,

Sounds like you have a winner there. Make sure you take good notes and report back! I want to find out if this puppy is a keeper!

Looking at the report the corn sugar has not been adjusted to allow for its 100% ferment-ability. Got to section Y and enter Corn sugar on the right line and change the FGDB to 100% and the moisture ( MC) to 0% . this will then adjust your grain bill. If you have already done this, then there is a bug because its not showing in the report.



Yeasty