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Need help understanding section W in BIABacus

Post #1 made 9 years ago
by milligan
Hi, I am playing around with BIABacus and teasing out the max capabilities of my kettle (19 litres, 30.5cm diameter) by using a sparge in a seperate vessel. At this stage it is purely a theoretical exercise with the added bonus of learning to massage BIABacus.

I am trying to work out how to fill in section W of BIABacus: If I was going to use Ralphs guide for maxiBIAB, given all its pros and cons, how would one fill out the BIABacus for that? I've tried different combinations of VIF then different numbers in section W but the logic still eludes me.

I've added my BIABacus file here with my attempt at understanding the maths.

In the file I have a VIF of 20.5 litres to give me a VIP of 19 litres (dreaming of a keg setup here). In section W I've held 15 litres out of the mash. And this is where I'm confused: do I need to allocate that 15 litres to the rest of the cells in section W? If I use some of that held back water for sparging, say 5 litres, do I need to add that to the cells below or has that already been accounted for?

I've read the wort shop posts and the many costs and warnings of using maxibiab, I'm just looking to understand biabacus in relation to FVV.

Cheers all.
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Post #2 made 9 years ago
by mally
Hi Milligan,

Good effort on filling out your BIABacus.
One thing I will mention is that you have saved it as "XLSX". This has caused all the cells to unprotect (read dangerous), and also makes it harder to view/work with. Just save it in the older "XLS" format in future. ;)

I know you say it is just an "exercise" so what you have done is fine, but in reality we recommend no more than 20-30% in dilutions. Off the top of my head I would "guess" that is around 11-12L VIF with that 19L kettle.

For your FVV in section W; you have told the BIABacus you will sparge 5L, add 5L during the boil, then add another 5L to the fermenter. It is entered correctly.
What is happening is your total water needed for this brew (TWN) is calculated and remains (relatively) constant. but your Mash Volume will change, and hence liquor to grain ratio.

In fact I have just noticed you have entered 15L in the "water held back from mash" or due to its "unprotection" is now not calculating.

Try using a new "protected" BIABacus and see if your problems are coming from broken calculations.
G B
I spent lots of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered
I've stopped drinking, but only when I'm asleep
I ONCE gave up women and alcohol - it was the worst 20 minutes of my life
    • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Great Britain

Post #3 made 9 years ago
by milligan
Thanks Mally. I am using Google Sheets to work with BIABacus as I don't own excel. Unfortunately Sheets only allows the user to save as xlsx and not xls. There may be a workaround which I'll look into (which may just involve getting excel).

As to the "Water Held Back from Mash:" cell, is it supposed to be protected and un-editable? If so, that may be where my confusion is coming in.

EDIT: I had a look at another BIABacus file and copied the formula from the "Water Held Back from Mash: " cell. Now my confusion has gone. I thought it strange that the cell for "Water Held Back from Mash:" was a different colour. Thanks to your post I've got it straight.

Now I can really max out the kettle. Cheers.
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Post #4 made 9 years ago
by mally
Yes milligan, that make sense now. :salute:

Just be careful about the amount of dilution you do. There is a quality issue to consider as well as an efficiency one (you will be using a lower L/G ratio and these get less efficient the lower you go).

On another note, others that do not have or want to use MS Excel have had good success with Libreoffice. Free and works well, albeit with a slight color difference apparently.
G B
I spent lots of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered
I've stopped drinking, but only when I'm asleep
I ONCE gave up women and alcohol - it was the worst 20 minutes of my life
    • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Great Britain

Post #5 made 9 years ago
by milligan
Thanks mally. I've just installed openoffice and will look at libreoffice aswell. I will also take into consideration your advice re dilutions. I will do some reading on the forum now regarding this. On another note 5kg of grain just arrived at my doorstep so I will be brewing tomorrow :)
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Post #6 made 9 years ago
by mally
:luck:

Let us know how it goes.
G B
I spent lots of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered
I've stopped drinking, but only when I'm asleep
I ONCE gave up women and alcohol - it was the worst 20 minutes of my life
    • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Great Britain
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