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Making an APA from scratch

Post #1 made 11 years ago
by onkeltuka
Me and my brewing pals were thinking that it would be nice to try a very basic recipe "from scratch". I tried to calculate a malt bill based on the DGB. I calculated everything based on a 30 liter volume, but that said, I'm not sure if that's "to fermentor" or "volume of ambient wort"? Anyways, 30 liters is what I would like to get to fermentor. Could I enter it like this to BIABicus and let it scale it for me?

I aim for an OG of 1.060. Grains based on my calculations supposing (an imaginary) efficiency of 70%:

Pale Ale 70% 6.17kg
Crystal 100 10% 953g
Munich 1 5% 453g
Malted Rye 5% 544g

Rye is a very Finnish thing, that's why it's included. Mash at 66 for 90 mins. Boil for 90 mins. Yeast US-05. But the hop bill is the question mark. I would like a big aromatic hoppiness like Founders All Day IPA, or Brew Dog PunkIPA. How should I calculate that?

ANd when starting to write this all down to the BIABicus, how do I go about it? Does the BIABicus know how to adjust hop bills and grain bills based on an OG I enter to section C: "This recipe requires an og of..."?
"The rules for making hop additions during the boil are about as well defined as those for a knife fight." -Stan Hieronymus

Post #2 made 11 years ago
by majorphill
onkeltuka

You have found one of the basic flaws found in most recipes out there. The terminology is unclear. as you say, what does 30 litres mean? The original brewer most probably knew but didn,t tell anyone. The same with "efficiency". Do a search on this forum and you will find pages of discussion trying to work out what people meant.

Dealing with that one first, every method and individual setup has different "efficiencies" at various stages. BIAB has it's own and are built into the defaults that you can alter in Section X, but for the time being, leave it at default. :peace:

BIAB does indeed scale the recipe you enter based upon a couple of things. One is the OG as you suggested. Another is the Volume into the fermentor (VIF). Another scales the hop bill using the Volume of Abient Wort (VAW), a number you rarely see, or sets the IBU's to whatever you want using Section D.

As long as you know the ratio between the grains you want to use, the OG you want to obtain and the VIF you want, BIABacus does the rest. See Section K.

To start fill in Section B with the dimensions of your equipment. That allows BIABacus to caclulate the volumes you need. Section C allows you to set the OG to the recipe original value or you can change it up or down as required. Enter your grain bill into section D on the left hand side. You can change the right hand side (what you will use) by altering the VIF and/or the OG. That's your grain bill scaled. :thumbs:

Now you move onto another area of confusion... The hop bill ...

Here you can enter the hop varieties, methods, etc on the left hand side. That's the easy bit. :evil: You need to fill in either the VAW or the IBU's you want. Good luck finding the VAW so lets fill in the IBU's. Thats easy. :evil: The "Founders All Day IPA" site says the IBU's are 42. Now all we need to know is what method they used to calculate that, because there are at least three well known formulae that give wildly different IBU values for the same Hop Bill. Look up Tinseth, Garetz,or Rager to confuse yourself. BIABacus uses Tinseth. The only way you are going to know, unless you have a large amount of money and access to laboratories who can tell you, is to try a value and see if that's what you want after you have brewed. :sad:

As to the Hop varieties, that's for you to work out. I have no idea. :blush:

The best way is to have a go. Fill in BIABacus and then ask questions. There is plenty of friendly help here :salute:

Majorphill

Post #3 made 11 years ago
by mally
Onkel -

Just to add to majorphill's good advice (or confuse you further).

You already have your recipe that you want to try, so for the left hand side of Sectionc C "original fermentable bill design" either put in those weights (in grams) OR enter the percentage. So in your case you could enter 70, 10, 5, 5 (but this equals 90% NOT 100%). You will either have to change those percentages to equal 100, or enter the weights if you are happy with that ratio.
So this section C area is in simple terms a ratio calculator (weights or percentage can be used).

It will then use this info to calculate "what you will use" based on this ratio and the volume of beer you want (VAW) which is linked to the VIF entered in section B.

The hop bill can be whatever you want. Punk IPA uses Ahtanum, Nelson Sauvin, Simcoe, and Chinook. Have a look here
Last edited by mally on 07 Sep 2014, 15:08, edited 1 time in total.
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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
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Post #4 made 11 years ago
by onkeltuka
Thanks guys, I'll try to get something together as soon as the kids will let me be for 5 minutes....
"The rules for making hop additions during the boil are about as well defined as those for a knife fight." -Stan Hieronymus

Post #5 made 11 years ago
by onkeltuka
OK here's how much I got down to the actual spreadsheet. Why does it change my malt and hop amounts, if what I'm putting down is the original malt&hop bill? I just can't get my head around that :interesting: Especially, it scales my hops to be a total of 371 grams!

How could I adjust to take into account my bigger evaporation rate? It's something like 12 liters/hour.
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"The rules for making hop additions during the boil are about as well defined as those for a knife fight." -Stan Hieronymus

Post #6 made 11 years ago
by majorphill
onkeltuka

Congratulations. I can't fault your attempt at BIABacus. :thumbs:

Your grain bill is changing for a couple of reasons.

Firstly as Mally said, The left hand side represents a ratio more than the actual grain bill. Your percentages added to 90% rather than 100%. BIABacus has allowed for that. Look at the original percent column in Section D and your recipe.

Secondly, I spoke about efficiencies. :o

You mentioned that the original recipe assumed an effiency of 70%. You don't say whether that is efficiency into the boil, out of the boil or into the fermenter. Assuming (that word again) you mean kettle efficiency (into the boil) you can change from the BIABacus default by entering 70% into Section X. If you do that your grain bill is closer to the original.

Thirdly you mentioned the original recipe was for 30 litres but you weren't sure at what stage that volume occurred. Your request was for 30 litres into the fermenter.

You have entered the original grain bill which BIABacus has used to calculate the ratios between your grains. You have entered a required OG and VIF. BIABacus has calculated the amount of grains required to reach those figures using your equipment and the BIAB method.

Your hop bill is changing for the same reasons. you have entered the ratios beteen your hops and an IBU reading that you want. BIABacus has calculated the hops you require to reach those IBU's in that VIF that you require. If you only wanted 15 litres VIF the hop bill would be smaller

You can change the evaporation rate in Section X to whatever you want and that again, is dependent on a myriad of variables. Mine is about 6.5 litres per hour with a vigorous boil at sea level.

Majorphill

Post #7 made 11 years ago
by mally
OK Onkel - I was in the middle of this reply when majorphill answered your questions, so a lot of this may be repeated! Anyway....

your values will change depending on how much beer you want (desired VIF), desired OG, boil length, whether maxi BIABing etc. (there are probably more, but cannot recall off the top of my head).

The OG value you have entered effects the efficiency calculation. so if you change your OG from 1.060 to 1.030 can you see how your malt bill ends up less than half? This is because gravity effects efficiency (I should also point out that the BIABacus is the only software/calc tool that does this).

Don't expect the left and right hand sides to match. The left is "setting the scene", the right is the calculation based on all your parameters, volume, kettle size, etc.

The hop bill is a bit tricky here as you are guessing what you want (I think). The values are so high because you are telling the BIABacus that you want 45 IBU's but the hops only see hot wort for a short period. You have 3 additions that have a "time in hot wort" the rest are zero/whirlpool hops that do not effectively contribute to that IBU value of 45.

I have read that Mad_Scientist & Rick will put a value of 12 minutes in those zero additions to give a rough idea of the contribution (citation required here)! You could also just use a high alpha hop at 60 minutes, and that will reduce the weights of all other additions too. However, this is all to calculate bitterness. The kind of ale you are creating will call for a lot of those late additions for flavour and aroma.
Others will probably have different methods/techniques, but when creating flavour & aroma additions I tend to use my own judgement.
Oh.. and finally, dry hopping is probably the best way to get aroma, have a read about that :shock:

####edit####

For your evaporation; how many brews have you done Onkel? If you are confident that your evaporation is always that high (your kettle does seem wide and short), then feel free to change the default. As majorphill said, section X add your value there. We normally recommend about 5 brews before changing from default, but yours appears to be extreme!
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
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Post #8 made 11 years ago
by PistolPatch
nice posts as always, major and mally ;)
majorphill wrote:...You mentioned that the original recipe assumed an effiency of 70%. You don't say whether that is efficiency into the boil, out of the boil or into the fermenter. Assuming (that word again) you mean kettle efficiency (into the boil) you can change from the BIABacus default by entering 70% into Section X. If you do that your grain bill is closer to the original.
Remember though, that your aim is not to match the quantities/weights of the original brewer as they have different equipment and practices to you - even fellow BIAB Brewers. This post gives more detail on this.

As mally said above. the left hand sides of sections C and D, 'set the scene'. The right hand side adjusts it to the size of your canvas.
Last edited by PistolPatch on 08 Sep 2014, 18:59, edited 2 times in total.
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Post #9 made 11 years ago
by onkeltuka
Thank you gentlemen for your answers.

I actually added 5% to both the Pale Ale-malt and the crystal. The way I did the original calculations was by following the basic instructions in Designing Great Beers.

I'm not sure about the exact evaporation,but last time it was so excessive that we did'nt get the amount to fermentor as was aimed for.

I'll try putting that 12 minute boil time to the finishing hops: I sure can't afford buying 400 grams of hops... ;)
"The rules for making hop additions during the boil are about as well defined as those for a knife fight." -Stan Hieronymus

Post #10 made 11 years ago
by onkeltuka
Now I started to doubt my evaporation calculations... what's the default? Maybe I'll try something like 9 liters/hour, that'll give me a couple of more liters VIB.
"The rules for making hop additions during the boil are about as well defined as those for a knife fight." -Stan Hieronymus

Post #11 made 11 years ago
by Rick
The default calculation is based on the surface area of your setup (inner diameter of your kettle).
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Post #12 made 11 years ago
by onkeltuka
OK. I'll try to adjust "a bit", and then try to get some concrete measurements next time.

I just checked what Ray Daniels means in DGB when he speaks of "efficiency", and he says "efficiency of extraction for the ingredients that you use". Duh. He says it's difficult to say what to start with, and recommends 68% as a starting efficiency. I really am not sure why I chose 70% for my calculations? Anyways, if I set section X to 68%, I get the right and left side of the malt bill to match up almost 100%, so might as well go with that.

For economical and mystical reasons I settled to three different hops: Willamette, Cascade and Amarillo.

But the hops: if I remove the "set the desired IBU's to"- option, then I don't get any kind of IBU's calculated? Why?
"The rules for making hop additions during the boil are about as well defined as those for a knife fight." -Stan Hieronymus

Post #13 made 11 years ago
by Rick
I think you might be confusing grain extraction potential (section Y handles this) and kettle efficiency.
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Post #14 made 11 years ago
by goulaigan
To design the hops section of your recipe, you must enter the IBU's you are hoping to achieve first, in order to see the amounts you will use. (in section D set my desired IBUs)

It seems weird at first, but if you think about it, when you design a recipe you should have an idea of the IBUs you want first, then think which hops and addition times you would like to use to get there.

I have been using the BIABacus exclusively to design my last 8 or 9 recipes since I really like the creativity aspect of brewing rather than trying to nail down clones of somebody else's brew, and it works really well.

I wouldn't change any efficiency defaults for a few brews at least, BIAB is very efficient and I would be surprised (if he is talking mash or into boil efficiency) if you were under 80%.

Happy creating! :luck:
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Post #15 made 11 years ago
by mally
Onkel - it may be less confusing for you if you make a concious decision to either design your own recipe, or copy/scale an existing one.

You can do both of course (tweak an existing recipe), but the difficulty you will have with this and copying one is making sure you have all the info required, and it seems like maybe you don't in this instance :scratch: .

Have you read the thread about low intergirty recipes?
See if you have anything that is deficient like that.

You could of course say, "I don't care if I have all the info" which is fine, and you could just brew away and find out for yourself if it was good or not, but don't try and match another brewers settings, just use what the BIABacus says and you will at least be able to make future tweaks to this with confidence/integrity.
Last edited by mally on 09 Sep 2014, 05:05, edited 1 time in total.
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
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Post #16 made 11 years ago
by PistolPatch
Time to slow down a bit here and re-group ;)...

A few major points are getting missed. I know they are confusing. For example...
onkeltuka wrote:I just checked what Ray Daniels means in DGB when he speaks of "efficiency", and he says "efficiency of extraction for the ingredients that you use". Duh. He says it's difficult to say what to start with, and recommends 68% as a starting efficiency. I really am not sure why I chose 70% for my calculations? Anyways, if I set section X to 68%, I get the right and left side of the malt bill to match up almost 100%, so might as well go with that.
It's hard when you read the above written by a respected author because you think it will be correct information. Re-read the link I gave in my last post really carefully as to why it is not. In short, the BIABAcus looks at what car you are driving and the journey you are going on and calculates the fuel (weight of grain) you will need to get there. All other books, software, etc, assume you are driving the same car on the same journey.

In other words, DO NOT CHANGE THE AUTO-EFFICIENCY IN SECTION X.
onkeltuka wrote:I'm not sure about the exact evaporation,but last time it was so excessive that we did'nt get the amount to fermentor as was aimed for.
Evaporation on a brew day depends on many variables. One brew day you might get 30 % more evaporation than on another brew day especially if you brew outdoors.

You say above that you didn't get the volume into fermentor that you wanted but did you have a higher original gravity than expected? Did you have more kettle trub than expected? If the latter, well that happens but if the former (and this is what we hope for) then you dilute the strong wort with water that has been boiled and then cooled. This increases the volume and lowers the gravity.

In other words, DO NOT CHANGE THE EVAPORATION RATE IN SECTION X.
onkeltuka wrote:I'll try putting that 12 minute boil time to the finishing hops: I sure can't afford buying 400 grams of hops... ;)
Changing the boil time to 12 minutes might make the BIABAcus tell you to reduce your hop requirements from 371 to 278 grams but it is not the correct logic.

There are a myriad of things here to deal with. For a start, your most lengthy addition is 15 minutes. There is no addition of say 60/75 minutes. Unless you do have a 60/75 addition, then yes, you will need a lot more hops to give you the bitterness. So, if you don't want to use so many hops, employ a 60/75 minute addition.

An all late hop addition recipe is advanced brewing and something you can't put numbers to.

When doing a late hopped recipe...

You really need to consider what chilling program you are employing for a start and I don't think this has been explored here at all. Also, the later you get in the boil, in other words with flavour and aroma, the more you need to depend on senses and less on numbers.

Please study this thread.

To Sum Up

Q1. Do you now understand that an efficiency figure supplied by another brewer is irrelevant to you?

Q2. Do you now understand that evaporation can vary wildly and that you're best bet is to assume you will get a high evaporation rate on brew day as then, all you have to do is top up with cooled, boiled water?

Q3. Do you now understand that the later you add hops in the boil, the less reliable the hop formulas become and the more you need to rely on experience and taste buds?
Last edited by PistolPatch on 09 Sep 2014, 17:57, edited 1 time in total.
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Post #17 made 11 years ago
by onkeltuka
Q1. Yes this is starting to sink in :)
Q2. Last time I ended up with less wort of slightly smaller OG. But I'll go with the default this time as well.
Q3. I added a 60 min addition, then a couple of them at 15 mins and then three more at flame-out, although I wrote them down at that 12 minute mark.And dry-hops too.

I'll go with what BIABicus says, gotta have some faith i guess :pray: ;)
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"The rules for making hop additions during the boil are about as well defined as those for a knife fight." -Stan Hieronymus

Post #18 made 11 years ago
by goulaigan
Wow, that is a lot of hops! I suppose I am used to around 20L VIF recipes tho. You could probably up your amount for the 60 minute addition to acheive the IBU without having to use so much for the 15 and flameout additions, since the BIABacus is scaling based on IBU contribution. Not to say that using over a half pound of hops in a batch is a bad thing LOL.

I like playing around with the figures and watching things change, for instance, if you change the 60 min addition from 15 to 30 Grams on the left, you will see that you save just over 40 Grams on the right from your total, as it scales the rest of the additions down.

The real question of course is how will that effect flavour and aroma, and the answer to that can probably only be acheived by brewing it, which in my opinion is the fun in recipe design. That along with the satisfaction of having a beer that you designed from the ground up.
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Post #19 made 11 years ago
by PistolPatch
Yep, mally and goulaigan both have very good points here.

My preference would be for you to not be designing at this stage of the game. You are better off asking for help in finding and copying a "high integrity" recipe. It is a much faster, safer learning path.

Your answer to Q2....

That is valuable information. What that says is, "There is a possibility that there is kettle efficiency problem so on your next brews take as many sets of measurements as you can. A set of measurements means a volume and gravity reading. In other words, just fill in a s much of Sections L and M as you can.

If after doing the above over several brews (as mally mentioned), Section P's first two lines show a pattern of lower than expected EIB and EAW then this means there is a problem.

Your answer to Q3....

Sorry mate. I couldn't quite understand that answer. The file of yours I downloaded above had no 60 minute additions from memory. In fact the first one was at 15 minutes I think. So I am confused as to why you are mentioning a 60 minute addition now.

Maybe I should have written, "Do you realise that boiling a given weight of hops for 60 minutes adds a lot more bitterness than if you only boil it for 15 minutes?

Call that last one Q4 :),
PP
Last edited by PistolPatch on 10 Sep 2014, 18:26, edited 1 time in total.
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Post #20 made 11 years ago
by onkeltuka
I can see the 60 min addition in the BIABicus spresdsheet file in post #17? I made changes and posted that new copy there.
"The rules for making hop additions during the boil are about as well defined as those for a knife fight." -Stan Hieronymus

Post #21 made 11 years ago
by PistolPatch
Sorry, got it now onke. Apologies I haven't followed this thread carefully. It did draw my attention though as there are so many excellent posts above that probably deserve several re-reads :salute:. Good stuff!
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Post #22 made 11 years ago
by onkeltuka
Please don't apologize,I really appreacite all the help and opinions you and all the others are sharing here. I really,really think this is the most genuinely helpful brewing forum in the internet. :peace:
"The rules for making hop additions during the boil are about as well defined as those for a knife fight." -Stan Hieronymus

Post #24 made 11 years ago
by onkeltuka
Is the KFL adjustment because of the hop trub? EDIT: it's not that, I see you use the big bag for hops.
"The rules for making hop additions during the boil are about as well defined as those for a knife fight." -Stan Hieronymus

Post #25 made 11 years ago
by Mad_Scientist
I should have provided more detail, sorry onkeltuka.

I noticed in your provided file that you have 6.6 ounces of pellet hops that will go into boil. I had 6.7 ounces. The one thing I know is, that I had 3.31 L of loss due to hop absorption (even after using a 5 gallon paint strainer bag and squeezing it almost dry).

section from my link I provided above:
[EDIT; Actual KFL - 2.5 L trub + 3.31 L hop absorbtion = 5.81 L]

I was guesstimating you might have only 2 L of trub due to your lower VIF / grain bill / recipe...

Your file is estimating 3.3 L KFL.
Last edited by Mad_Scientist on 13 Sep 2014, 04:04, edited 1 time in total.
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