metalhophead wrote:When I was saying efficiency I was reffering to the eob efficiency. Am I correct this is the main one people refer to? I'm not sure why the efficiency changes into the kettle. Is that just because you leave some trub and wort behind?

When I brewed my centennial IPA I did a normal mash and measured the gravity and saw that it was once again to low. I withheld a gallon that I normally would have just added after removing the bag. Since I saw that my pre boil efficiency was low I then poured some of the gallon through the bag until I hit the correct number. I ended up being 1 point to high, but that was better than being to low.

Hey Fred, Good on you for measuring your actual volumes at VIK and EOBV and the corresponding gravity readings, GIK and EOBG. Your efficiencies in Section P are 70.1% and 70.6% are very close together. You did a very good job! Your efficiencies DO NOT change in the kettle between these two points, Fred. On this brew, there was no additional sugars added after the boil started, so all was going on was evaporation. You could take a volume and gravity set anytime between these two points and come up with the same efficiency.

The EIF will be different, because you have taken the time to measure your trub and did not include it in the fermenter, so the BIABacus calculated that efficiency as 61.1%. Well, even if someone doesn't measure the trub and includes the whole lot in the fermenter, there is still a different efficiency because trub doesn't turn into beer.

Grumble, grumble, grumble .

Fred, I am grumbling because I can't believe how hard it is to explain and write something good on efficiency. If you had started out here on BIABrewer.info, I could explain everything fairly quickly I think. But, very few people have.

For example, in your prior posts you have twice referred to an, 'efficiency calculator.' Can you please give me a link to this efficiency calculator?

...

I think I mentioned before Fred that the BIABacus already has an efficiency calculator in it so I need to know the reasoning why you aren't looking at Section P of your BIABacus?

And, it looks like in some bits of your BIABacus you have just copied estimated figures into the actuals because they match exactly. Don't do that!!!

...

Anyway, pretty cross with myself as I have just spent quite a few hours, yet again, trying to explain "efficiency" in yet another way and feel as though I have not succeeded but I really have run out of time yet again.

Here's my latest attempt at trying to explain it but it needs many more hours of work before it will all read nicely .

[Before wading through the below Fred, maybe read the section towards the end titled, "BTW, my bad on the following ..." as I buggered up something in my last post here.]

metalhophead wrote:...One day I will make you proud...

Sorry Fred, I got side-tracked, and a bit drunk, last night trying to write up that pdf above. I've been using Microsoft Publisher for years so am unfortunately sort of conditioned to using it for that type of stuff but in the 2013 version the bastards have moved every single command to a different place so that one single page took hours. Might be time I ditched Publisher .

Anyway, to your posts/s...

metalhophead wrote:When I just said "efficiency" I was being too vague which you say multiple times in numerous posts. When I was saying efficiency I was referring to the eob efficiency. Am I correct this is the main one people refer to?

It should be but unfortunatley Fred it is not. Some brewers when they say "efficiency" mean in the kettle (the pdf above hopefully explains why any efficiency measured in the kettle remains constant) while others mean in the fermentor. Most brewers who post on forums assume that everyone else means the same efficiency that they do but unfortunately this is not true.

It would take several pages on why this is so (and I have written it before on the forum somewhere) but, trust me when I say it is very important that you be precise about what efficiency you are referring to. This post here has easy, unambiguous terms. For example, you say above you were measuring end of boil efficiency - that is exactly what you should write. On this forum, in this thread for sure, you can just write EOBE.

metalhophead wrote:I'm not sure why the efficiency changes into the kettle. Is that just because you leave some trub and wort behind?

I'm thinking here Fred that you mean, "I'm not sure why the efficiency changes into the fermentor?" If so, your answer above is correct. What you (and Richard) say is the essence of the pdf I wrote, just shorter .

Moving onto the Actuals..

In post #1249 you talked about running some of the gallon held back from the mash through the grain. That's great as long as the process didn't cause you too many labour problems. On your size brews, sparging isn't too much of a hassle so I think that was a good decision. And, being within one gravity point? Well, you can't ask for more than that .

In post # 1254 immediately above you mention about taking gravity readings at 150 F (66 C)and temperature correcting them. I strongly advise against that. Try and cool them to at least 86 F (30 C) and then still temp correct them. Gravity readings are imprecise enough as it is without introducing yet another margin of error. (We need to do a bit more research on how ell those temp correction formulas hold up and, hold on!!!! Make sure you aren't using a hydrometer at those tempos as they can crack on you.)

metalhophead wrote:On my last couple brews I have been withholding a gallon so I could mash more grain. Is that ok?

Yep, except there is a bit of a Catch 22 here as the less water that touches your grain means you get lower EIK which means you need more grain . The BIABacus is the perfect (and only tool) around where you can see this effect at work easily, just look at how the total weight of grain required in Section C changes as you increase your dilutions in Section W. The good news is that in your case, as your batch sizes are not huge, you can avoid the catch 22 by sparging the water you withhold just as you did on that last brew. If you do this, you should move that gallon to the 'Water Used in a Sparge' field of Section W.

metalhophead wrote:I've read that too much dilution after the boil can be a problem, but before the boil is ok.

That is correct . In fact, dilution before the boil is said to improve quality. The reason why it is not done regularly though is because it costs more in grain. Less water touches the grain so you need more of it to get the same gravity wort going into the boil.

Dilutions during the boil are sort of a no man's land on quality. Dilutions after the boil would decrease quality but if kept within reasonable bounds, very few brewers would be able to detect a difference on most styles so no need to call the police or anything .

BTW, my bad on the following ...

In my last post here I said, "...it looks like in some bits of your BIABacus you have just copied estimated figures into the actuals because they match exactly. Don't do that!!!"

I was wrong/drunk/something! I was looking at your Section L KFL and VIF. and I think I must have been drunk because your numbers there are actually great (see below). Who knows what I was thinking .

One last question for you...

Back in post #1239 here last week, you said, "My efficiency still appears to be the same, around 65 percent." I know you realise the diff between EIK and EIF now but I'm not sure if amongst our posts we have explained that efficiency (of whatever type) should be lower for a high gravity brew than a low gravity brew. In other words, unless you are brewing exactly the same gravity beer over and over, then you should not be getting the same 'efficiency' on all your brews. In other words, 'efficiency' is not a constant.

Nice Job!

Finally, as Mad-Scientist said above, nice job on recording all those actual figures. Now that I have looked at them sober, I'd put that BIABAcus of yours as equal to the best (most comprehensive) actuals posted. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the next brew turns out. Remember to move that gallon to 'Water Used in a Sparge' for the next brew.

And one thing I am not sure we have discussed is whether you have been enjoying the beers . Are they tasting good?


PP

metalhophead wrote:So what it all boils down to (haha) is 65% EOBE a good number for a 6 percent beer without a sparge?

Hey Fred, Your reported 'actuals' from the BIABacus was an EOBE of 70.6%, which is good. Like PP said, you are working with a manageable size grain bill that you should be able to move that 3.8 L of water over to 'water used in a sparge', then you can expect an 80% EOBE on this recipe next time, which is a very good efficiency rate and will use less grain.

Cheers...

metalhophead wrote:It was 70.6 because I did a small sparge, but if I hadn't done that I would have still been 5 or 6 points below my starting gravity. After I lifted the bag I measured 1.050. Since I have been low on all my biabs so far I sparged with some of the water and kinda just figured it out to get to 1.056 (preboil gravity). I also noticed that if I enter 1.067 as my final gravity only then does my EOBE match the estimate. Does this mean that the biabicus is basing everything off the original recipe's gravity and not what I would entered in the section "For this batch though, I'd like to try____".

Metalhophead

After you lifted your bag and measured, you should have got a 1.076 (estimated), see Section M, pre-lauter gravity (PLG). And let's say, you 'added the 3.8 L before the boil', that's the GIK, you should have gotten a 1.055 (estimated) at that point. By sparging 'some' of the water and arriving at a 1.056 and 14.90 L VIK (14.39 L VIK estimated), I guess you did good for yourself.

I don't know what you mean by 'but if I hadn't done that I would have still been 5 or 6 points below my starting gravity'. How do you figure that?

And finally, the BIABacus does calculate the OG you entered, just delete it and you'll see the grain changes and 'the whole shebang'.

metalhophead wrote:My main homie...

As for the responding to posts in detail bit, I always start off thinking this will take about 5 or 10 minutes and somehow it always takes ages longer .

Btw, on the actuals thing, what I think happened is that I was looking at someone else's file but it was also in Libre or Open Office and so was the same colour as yours .. Often hae too many files open here .

Fred and Richard (MS),

I think there is possibly still an efficiency problem going on here as Fred only scored the gravity he wanted by sparging which he did not originally intend to do / set up in his BIABacus. This is why on the next brew, I want Fred to move that gallon into the 'Water Used in Sparge' field and take great measurements like he did on this brew. If the next brew falls short on gravity then we can look at a few other things.

Fred, as for that question, "Is 65% EOBE a good number for a 6% beer without a sparge?" that is not quite the right question. The right question would be more, "If I held back 25% of my TWN in a brew and used that as a dilution, would it be reasonable for me to expect 65% EOBE on a 6% ABV brew?" In that case, the answer would be yes. The estimated EIK and EOBE efficiencies in Setion P of the BIABacus will confirm this.

Anyway, no more sad love songs and that is great news that the beers are excellent. It just goes to show that you don't have to worry about the numbers too much.


PP

metalhophead wrote:Could the fact that I'm only doing a sixty minute mash be whats causing my numbers to be low?

Hey Fred, BIABrewer is collecting data on Mash Gravity Figures Needed for BIABacus
You can get a couple more points going to a 90 mins mash, and a few more by doing a mash-out, 'your mileage may vary'.

metalhophead wrote: I'm still curious about the darkness of my Centennial IPA from the 11 percent crystal 60. Like I said before I assume its darker because I increased the amount. My Chinook had 5% crystal 80 and is lighter. I intentionally increased the amount of crystal on my Centennial to make it sweeter, but oddly from my sample I tasted it seems fairly bitter (though I guess I did increase the bittering charge as well). Right now I'm just trying to brew similar beers just with different hops and different levels of crystal so I can learn the difference between them.

There is a color conversion tool on the BIABacus. Research the color and plug the EBC number in Section C.

Hi ya Fred. Main homie here ,

We have a big problemo with the file above. It is not the recipe for NRB's All Amarillo Ale!!!! It's important to get the file name right otherwise some other poor bugger might brew it thinking it is the recipe so named. And, how are you going to find the recipe again? Recipe name has now been changed

When you do re-upload it, you'll also need to to link what recipe you are copying from... I'm assuming that seeing you put an EOBV-A figure in Section D, you are copying a recipe. If you were designing a recipe, you would fill out the second line of Section D instead.

All that being said, the recipe looks a bit massive on the hops but I'm not skilled on that side of thing. Main one that worries me is the 50 grams at 5 mins. Not sure why the 5 mins instead of 0 mins or why the big quantity?

One last thing. As Richard mentioned above, do the 90 minute mash and mash-out. Not sure how we missed this before but that is important. It might be even more important on these high gravity beers you have been doing. We don't have enough numbers yet to know for sure.

90 minutes and mash-out!!!
PP

PP, it seems to me that Fred mentioned at one time that he was having probs changing the name of his file. I can't put my finger on the post but I am sure he mentioned this and apologized for all of his recipes having the same name. Maybe Fred could repost this with details.

metalhophead wrote:Hey guys! I'm still alive! I'm getting married in a few weeks and it has started to get a little crazy...

Here we go again . Fred, the last guy that got married here was Wizard78 and we never head from him again. Send him a PM - "Whassup?"

spanspoon wrote:I've done a few kits now and time to up my game....giving biab a whirl. I have a 30l burco boiler. Given that summer (hopefully) is on its way I'm going for a refreshing wheat beer...

Apologies, having a lot of problems with my computer the last few weeks spanspoon. I write a lot of stuff and as I am writing, the screen shuts down and my text appears in the web address search bar and 30/45/60 mins work goes down the drain. As you can imagine, that is is severely pissing me off!

I just lost a lot I had written to you.

Anyway, what I wrote about was 'low integrity' recipes. I don't think you should brew the recipe above - we can do better. Search the word 'integrity' on this site and you will see why.

We can brew the above recipe but the results might be a bit random. Do you have your heart set on that particular recipe?


PP

Good on you rpt ,

You have done a great job on working all this out on your own. Very nice! The only error I could find which is totally minor is on the first sheet, you typed in the grain and ho names on the left and right hand sides of Section C and D. This is only necessary if you actually want to use something different from the original recipe. This didn't happen on the second file so I reckon you know this now anyway .

Great recording of your numbers as well.

As for the efficiencies, they are fine. If you have everything right in your brewing, you will do better than the auto-efficiency estimates of the BIABacus. For example, it is not uncommon to get over 90% EIK on an average gravity brew (say 1.050) if your water etc, times and temps are right. The BIABacus favours a lower auto-estimate as it is a lot easier to deal with more beer of a higher gravity than the reverse.

Because you have taken several sets of measurements on your first two brews, you could choose to maybe adjust the auto-efficiency in Section X by 5%.

If you keep going the way you are going, after five brews, you will have some excellent info with which you will be able to fine-tune the BIABacus auto-estimates. Because your end of day volumes are coming out so close, the only thing I would change until you have done five brews is the auto-efficiency thing. Changing anything else will just muddy the waters for now.

Congrats again
PP

Zymeck, I'll answer your questions in a separate post. Before that...

rpt wrote:I'd like to make a few comments and suggestions about the BIABacus - is this the right thread or is there another one for this? I think it's fantastic as is but I'd love to help make it even better.

Good stuff rpt. The best thread for suggestions is the pre-release thread. Bear in mind that any suggestions that require the writing of macros into the spreadsheet won't be done. When they have been done in the past they have failed to work cross-platform and so ended up being stripped away.

Zymeck, nice job on the BIABacus. I can't find a single error - everything is great!!! I'm off to work soon so will jumpo straigh to your questions...

1. If you are doing a pure (full-volume) BIAB such as you will be doing, the volumes can be seen pictorially in this post. Click on the pic or save it to your computer to view it more easilly.

From that you'll see that TWN is the amount of water you will need at room temperature for your brew. When heated, it expands a little. We call this 'Strike Water Neeeded - SWN'. When you put the grain in, the volume increases again. We call that Mash Volume. When you take the spent grain out, it will have left behind most of it's sugar content but will have absorbed some water. The end result is that we end up with a bit less volume in the kettle before the boil than we started with. We call that 'Volume into Kettle (VIK)' which, on reflection, could be a pretty confusing term to a new, BIAB all-grainer as it is a more 'traditional' term really. We might have to re-think that one. For now though, it is how much wort is in your kettle at the beginning if the boil.

2. I always do 90 minute boils and tend to add my first hop addition at 75 minutes. This gives the boil a chance to settle down whilst giving the first hop addition lots of time in the kettle.

3. It is fine to take a sample before you pitch the yeast and pour it back in assuming you will do as you say on the cleanliness side. I'd probably avoid the bottling one though unless you pour that sample into a single bottle, top it up and then prime it individually.

Have fun!
PP