mtate75 wrote:Would y'all mind taking a look and letting me know if I'm on track or need to make any changes?

mtate, nice post I reckon .

All the regulars here must be drunk though as they missed the main thing .

They should have asked if you had a link to the original recipe because your question is mainly a scaling one. Unless you know the EOBV-A of the original recipe, you are flying blind.

Personally, I think (nup, want to think on this more...)

Sorry, I am way tired now but my next question in this thread would be... "Are all BIABrewers/BIABacus experts happy with my comment, 'Assuming 7.5% AA for the blend comes out pretty close to the 120 IBUs that Northern Brewer shows on the pro-mash report so I guess I'm comfortable running with that.'"

Well, they shouldn't be.

Brain's run out of steam but I don't think you should have been given a yes on this recipe.

PP

P.S. I fully expect Yeasty and mally to retract or at least expand on their prior answers .
P.S.S. I realise that would take hours mally/yeasty so, maybe instead, just try and dig up some old threads.

Having my first day off work in ages tomorrow so should be able to give you some sane answers then mtate . We didn't look after you very well in this thread back in mid-February when everyone was pretty busy. I'll try and correct this tomorrow unless Yeasty or mally beat me to it .

Between now and then, can you do the following?...

1. Post your actual BIABacus file here - this will help us check a couple of things.

2. As for the IBU thing I reckon this post is probably one of my more sensible ones on this issue. Can you have a read of that and let me know if that sheds light on the slightly 'out there' post I made above yesterday .

Good on you,
PP

BabyFaceFinster, Looking over the .xls,78% is not too bad bad for 90 minutes at 150F/65.55C.

You may get a EIF of 80% if you mash at 153F/57C. It is the best Temperature for all enzyemes.

A few degees, do mean a few %!

[NOTE: Josh, that answer above is a bit misleading sorry. Two main things to note are the difference between EIK and EIF (see below). Secondly, while temp does affect EIK, assuming a full-volume mash, the gravity of the brew has a far greater affect on the result than mash temp. This is why the BIABAcus auto-efficiency estimates change when you change the OG for example.]

BabyfaceFinster

Before we get to your question, just wanted to note that your EIF was estimated at 78.0% while you scored 74.3%. That is totally within the ball-park and isn't worth a second look especially on a single brew. So, yo have nothing to worry about .

As to your question though...

My EIK is fine but my EIF is low. WHat does this mean?

If your 'Efficiecny into Kettle (EIK)' is fine but your 'Efficiency into Fermentor (EIF)' is low, all this means is that your your 'Kettle to Fermentor Loss (KFL)' is high. In other words, you are probably leaving too much wort behind in the kettle.

Things like a hopsock or whirlpool may help to reduce this. Also remember that on very hoppy beers, you will get more kettle trub and therefor a higher KFL than on less hoppy beers.

A search here on "trub management" may come up with some more ideas.

The BIABacus File

Your file looks great. One possible big problem though is that you don't have an EOBV-A in Section D or a Desired Tinseth number. This means that there are no numbers on the right hand side of Section D and therefore the recipe theoretically cannot be brewed. A good rule to follow would be, "If nothing is displayed under 'What you will use...' in Section C or D then something is not right."

Let me know if that makes sense.


PP

The best way to start maevans is to download and fill out the BIABacus as much as you can,then post it here and someone will go over it for you and offer their guidance.

Hi Maevans, You can download BIABacus here (read the intro there too). There are two that you can download. One is blank, and one is filled in which can be changed or referred to. Start by filling in section A, and B with your pot dimensions, then move on to section C.

Until the instructions are written, it’s kind of like doing a puzzle, and if you are not in a hurry to start using it, it can be a lot of fun, and very rewarding figuring it out. You will keep discovering new and amazing things that it can do, and interestingly as time goes on and you discover more and more, it will feel as though it is your own creation, even though it isn’t.

BIABacus is an amazing toy for adults, and a great complement to the hobby of beer making.

Don’t be in a hurry though. It’s a leisure activity for now. Who wants instructions for a puzzle any way? It would take all the fun out of it

Still pretty busy on this other project but would like to see if I can catch up on a few posts I am still owing here...

maevans: Just saw your post. Good advice from Lylo and GR. Maxi-BIAB is a juggle. Please read this post and the summary at the end of this post. They should get you thinking along the most practical lines .

BabyfaceFinster: Good on you for getting the figures plugged in*. I better not say too much on Fremantle as I'll get side-tracked . I live in East Fremantle though and it has had a naval history for a long time as Fremantle is at the mouth of the Swan River. Perth is located about 7 miles up the river. Years ago when I was in pubs in Fremantle, the Americans would invite hotel management out onto the ships. One of these was the biggest aircraft carrier in the world at the time. That was pretty cool!

* Whoops! Just opened the file. I'm a bit worried that the 21.0 L should actually be 23.31 L so that it matches the EOBV-A in Section K. (21.0 L is the VIF in Section K). Double-check that one.

mtate75: Thanks for reading up on the IBU stuff. It's an important area to be aware of I think and most brewers are not told about it. The other thing that is really important is this EOBV-A thing. We didn't address it properly when you first posted in mid-February. We need to do that now.

I was hoping to find another link to a post already written on this but can't find one that explains the importance of EOBV-A very well unfortunately. (Quite amazing as I thought I'd written a book on this already. Go figure ) Let's have a look at this from another angle...

[I'm going to post the next part, "Three People and a Cup of Tea," otherwise it will get lost here.]

[Pre-Amble: Any new/old brewer who after reading/studying the following, can simultaneously say, "How ridiculous is that!" and, "How right is that!" can be sure, at the very least, that they aren't 'Kool-Aid' brewers*.]

[center]Three People and a Cup of Tea[/center]

Have you ever met anyone that always leaves a bit (or a lot) of tea or coffee at the bottom of their mug? They let it sit for so long it becomes too cold to drink?

Let's say that you have a friend like this and that you both make your tea exactly the same way. You both have it with two sugars (10 grams) and steep it in 200 mls of boiling water. The only difference between you two is that your friend never drinks 50 ml of that 200 ml, he just throws it down the sink.

Imagine if the two of you had a third friend over one day and they loved the way that you and your friend made your tea. The third person loved it so much you actually gave them a teabag to take home.

The day after you shared that tea, the third friend emailed you both though and asked...

The Question

"How did you make that great cup of tea? I have the teabag but am not sure what to do with it."

The Useful Answer

"Put the teabag in 200mls of just-boiled water and remove after 3 minutes. Then add 10 grams of sugar." (Something like that.)

The Useless Answer

"Ten grams of sugar gives me a 150ml cup of that great tea. Put the teabag in just-boiled water for three minutes before adding the sugar." (Notice that there is no mention of the 50 mls thrown down the sink or, alternatively, the 200 mls of just-boiled water?)

[center]How do I know if I have been given a Useful or a Useless Answer?[/center]
Let's pretend that brewing software is meant to be your recipe 'checkpoint'. Well, pre-BIABAcus software reminds me of the following...

One of my favourite books is, "Holidays in Hell," by P.J. O'Rourke. In it, he talks not about checkpoints but 'roadbloacks.' He says,

One thing you can count on in [certain] countries is trouble. There’s always some uprising, coup or marxist insurrection going on, and this means military roadblocks. There are two kinds of military roadblocks, the kind where you slow down so they can look you over, and the kind where you come to a full stop so they can steal your luggage. The important thing is that you must never stop at the slow-down kind of roadblock. If you stop, they’ll think you are a terrorist about to shoot them, and they’ll shoot you. And you must always stop at the full-stop kind of roadblock. If you just slow down, they’ll think you are a terrorist about to attack them, and they’ll shoot you. How do you tell the difference between the two kinds of roadblocks? Here’s the fun part: You can’t!

In this thread, occasionally we can tell the difference but more often it is a guess at best.

[center]What this thread/post 'boils' down to.[/center]
Excuse the pun, but this thread/post is nothing more than about trying to find out the answer to the most basic of questions. In this thread, we have to work out whether we have enough information to determine how many mls really 'made' the cup of tea.

I can't think of any software besides the BIABacus that does this. The BIABacus clearly says it is 200 mls made up of 150 mls + 50mls. Other software can say 150 mls when they really mean 200 mls. It's a big problem.

[center]The Next Step[/center]
mtate, because we have some time up our sleeve, can you let me know if the above 'tea' analogy helps? I'd also prefer to take this whole thing step by step if you don't mind.

The next step is determining whether the 22.71 l (6 gal) you have in Section D of your file is correct. Before we go there, it would be nice to see if what is written above makes a bit of sense. Once it does, then we can start to look more at what that 22.7 L (6 gal) might really mean.


PP

Post-Script

If I had time to write the above post again I would re-write it with a different analogy. I would have talked more about making a pot of tea. When you make a pot of tea, there are always dregs. How you handle those dregs varies from tea brewer to tea brewer.

* Give two tea brewers 50 grams of tea and what is relevant is how much water they put in the pot NOT what they get out of it.

[If you get that last sentence, put yourself into the top 2-5% of brewers. It's that easy and that hard.]

* Give two tea brewers 50 grams of tea and what is relevant is how much water they put in the pot NOT what they get out of it.
Is it not also very important to know how much water was still in the pot (EOBV-A)before they started drinking it?

PP, when you have the time, you do such a fantastic job of helping us noobs (and not so noobs) the components of the picture, not just the picture itself. Sometimes, the picture is overwhelming.. but, when you eat the elephant piece by piece.. it's not so daunting a task. Thanks for your helps.

“How do I know if I have been given the useful or the useless answer?”

In the case of making tea you will need to know

1. That the water is just boiled.
2. The volume of water
3. The amount of tea (one tea bag).
4. How long to steep the tea bag in the water
5. When to add the sugar
6. How much sugar to add

So in order to know if you have been given a useful, or a useless answer, you need to first identify the important information you need, and then consider whether all the information is given in the answer. If there is just one piece of information missing then the chances of replicating that special cup of tea are infinitesimally small.

I think that’s where a lot of the frustration comes from with the beer recipes. One piece of information not there and you may as well start from scratch and make your own recipe.

Starting from scratch and making your own recipe isn’t a bad idea any way. It’s more fun and more creative designing your own beer. That way you can take all kinds of ideas from all the junk recipes and figure out a beer to call your own.

How depressing would it be to go to all the effort of brewing a junk beer, from a junk recipe, and have to call it someone else’s beer?

Nobody mentioned about squeezing the tea bag.

In my case, I think I used too many tea bags, assumed the cube of sugar given me was 10 grams, or something was in the water, or it was a PICNIC! This is my 2nd BIABacus recipe. This one had a normal 'sugar' bill compared to the first. Why did my 'actual' sugar gravity come in much higher than the estimate? Maybe my sugar was 'high grade'...??