I am a newbie, also in Victoria, and just joined the BrewVIC facebook page. There are also pages for cider and wine.

Thanks PistolPatch, I have seen that first graphic before, though not the second guide. Before this conversation it hadn't registered to me that it was showing water volume changes--I was just looking at the workflow, gravity and terminology. That is very interesting. And for other newbies who are f...

Thanks for this PistolPatch. Have you seen this video on compounding German words? It is about Barbara who has a bar that serves barbarians... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG62zay3kck That is a bit how I feel when I try to type BIABacus. My brain always twists a bit in my skull as I try to figure...

Still don't understand Maxi and the Abacus. Wow. I keep staring at my Abacus and changing numbers. I keep re-reading Ralph's guide, and re-reading linked posts and trying to figure things out, and it still doesn't make sense. I don't see where sparge water is accounted for being added back into the...

Oops. And here is the file. Last night I reduced the dilution to be in line with the 30% maximum suggestion.

Cheers.

Thanks for the reply PistolPatch....and thanks for inventing BIAB. :thumbs: The sourdough comparison is maybe not the best. I was thinking of tea. I was told the Russians brew a very strong tea concentrate, and then when they want a cup, they dilute it with boiling water from the kettle on the back ...

Thanks PistolPatch. I added the IBU tweak you mentioned and read the linked posts, and the links within the links. I also did the advanced searches and read the several posts that came up. I have done those searches before and read most of those posts already. But, I still don't understand...here ar...

Hello all, I made my first Maxi-BIAB batch on Christmas Day, using information cobbled together from around the net--then I found BIABrewer. I have done a ton of reading here, and in working with the Abacus it is clear what a fantastic amount of work has been put into this tool. Unfortunately, I am ...

I did a quick test with the liquor from some Rum Cherries. It measured up around 28 Brix--I don't remember the exact number. Then I poured some on a scrap of some organic cotton sheets (nice and tight weave ;) ) and touched the drop on the bottom to the refractometer. It dropped .6 Brix, which seems...

Very interesting study on refractometers Mally. As I was reading I started wondering if filtering would work, and then the forum started talking about filtering. But nobody posted about results of filtering. I think using a refractometer you could use a little scrap of filter. Just touching it to th...

Thanks Mally, I'll check out the links and give the calculator a whirl for my next batch.

re: refractometer I thought I had gone to heaven with the refractomoeter. So much less fuss, less to clean, less waste, less worry. More awesome! But, it never read right, even with a conversion calculator (accounts for alcohol and requires starting gravity) like this one: http://www.northernbrewer....

Wow, the answers here are blowing my mind.

I did my very first batch before I found this forum, and made what I now understand to a Maxi-BIAB, to get five gallons of beer out of a five-gallon pot.

I thought I might spoil myself and get a 7 gallon kettle!

Thanks Nuff.

The BIABacus is a lot more intimidating than the calculator! I'll dig in though. I have read all the Sweet Liquor Shop posts and most that I could find on Maxi-BIAB. Just did a search on juggle and I will read through that stack.

Hello all, bit of an introduction, then one question at the end... I wish I had found this site just slightly sooner--before I did my first batch with what I now understand is the Maxi-BIAB method. Still, if I had found the site earlier I might be suffering from 'analysis paralysis' instead of proud...