Sorry S&H, I was racing and worded that last post incorrectly.

There are actually two ways in which the EOBV-A field can be populated. Firstly, you can measure the wort at the end of the boil while it is hot and then put that number into the EOBV field immediately above EOBV-A. As soon as you do this, the BIABacus will populate the EOBV-A field.

You may then go on to measure kettle trub and volume into fermentor. If you do this, as you did, the BIABacus will add those numbers together and put them into the EOBV-A field, over-riding the prior value if there was one. Why? Because KFL and VIF measurements are likely to be more accurate.

The purpose of allowing the two ways of measuring EOBV-A is to allow not only for different scenarios that exist amongst brewers but it can also be used as a double-check. Usually the two numbers would not match exactly but...

By some miracle, your two numbers agree exactly... 25.5 L less shrinkage = 24.52 L (you can check this by deleting the trub figure temporarily from your BIABacus.) Also 21.0 L + 3.52 L = 24.52 L .

So, just remember that if you have filled in KFL and VIF in Section L, it is those numbers that EOBV will be calculated from in preference to anything else.


PP

Hey Brendan

Move the OG in Section C over to the left on that same row, "This recipe requires an Original Gravity (OG) of:", and then your Hop Bill will populate in Section D, "What you will use".

~richard

[Some stuff for you below Strengthnhealth after Brendan...

Brendandrage wrote:Hi all,
Im looking to also do a Kolsch and try to learn a bit more about the Biabicus.
So i have attached a slight variation of a recipe i found on here.
I would like to hear some feedback on what i have missed or done wrong.

Cheers
Brendan

Looks like you have done a great job on filling out the BIABacus Brendan . I like fermenting that recipe very cool (14-15 C) so as no fruit comes through. Yum!

Strengthnhealth wrote:Hey PP
The reason the numbers add up exactly is because I didn't actually measure the KFL. I calculated it as it was blank. Lol. I guess I should have just left it blank.

Strengthnhealth wrote:Kegged it yesterday. FG of 1.010. Should be ready tonight. I carb it with 35 psi for 36 hrs. Not sure how to put this in BIABacus.

Ha! Thanks for letting me know about the numbers adding up exactly - lol. On the psi thing, you can't enter that 'formally' into the BIABacus or into any other brewing software. There is no formula I know of anywhere that does this but I really don't know why.

What we basically want is a formula that tells us how much CO2 will be taken into solution if we apply x amount of pressure at y temperature over such and such a time. Must be something out there .

S&H, I see your post was moved to here from somewhere else. Note the answer to your CO2 question two posts above as you might have missed that.

PistolPatch wrote:When using a liquid starter, the BIABacus (and most/all? main commercial software) does not allow for it. To get around this, if you want to have 23 litres of wort fermenting in your fermentor but are going to be using a 1.5 L starter, then, in your BIABacus, in Section B, you should change 'Desired Volume into Fermentor' from 23 to 21.5 L.

I'm assuming that you did this?

When you say, "The VIF includes 1.5 L starter," I am assuming you mean in your actuals (Section L)? If so, it shouldn't be there. In fact, the 1.5 L shouldn't be anywhere really as the BIABacus won't account for it. Your VIF in Section L should just be based on what came out of your kettle.

If the BIABacus gets written into code, dealing with starters and their effect on gravities, bitterness and volumes etc would be put in but putting it into the spreadsheet form would take up too much space. You can use Section N to deal with it to an extent but it would take too long to write up how.

So, for now, just remember to record your volumes and gravity before you add the starter to the fermentor. And, remember that because you are adding 1.5 L of starter, then your volume into packaging will be 1.5 L higher than what the BIABacus tells you.


PP

Many of us mash for 90 minutes (Section E) with BIAB. The thought is (or at least was) that you pick up a little more EIK that way.

I've never brewed a lager, but I was under the impression that you needed longer fermentation and conditioning time than what your recipe shows.

This is probably obvious, but if you are converting someone else's recipe, don't forget you will need to enter the AA% of the hops you actually use.

Hi I am hoping I can get some assistance with this brew. It will be my first official stovetop BIAB.

I am planning my first Hefeweizen, I have kept the first one nice a simple so it can act as a base from which I can make alterations in future batches until I get what I want.

The recipe is basically 50/50 wheat/pils, which is probably all that's needed anyway?

I have a few limitations at home with space and equipment as well as time, so I am approaching it this way:

I have adapted an all grain recipe (Jamils) that used 2.54kg each of wheat/pils malts. I want to mash as much grain as I can and top up with extract. I have formulated the ingredients working from Jamils recipe i am starting with a whole can of wheat extract on the assumption the extract is 60/40 wheat/pils. Therefore to keep the 50/50 split I end up with;

Ingredients
1.5kg Wheat LME
1.35kg wheat malt
1.75kg pils malt
23g Hallertau hops 4.7 AA (60mins)
Wheat Yeast
Boil 60 mins
Expected SG 1050 FG 1013
Expected IBU 11
Batch size 23L

Other than standard saucepans I have a 15.1L and a 7.6L pots. I was planning on boiling and conducting a mini BIAB in the 15L pot and sparge by dunking the grain bag into the 7.6L pot previously filled with water and heated. I want to get as much out of the grains as possible so would prefer to sparge/dunk them after mashing. Given the small size of 2nd pot I was thinking of doing the sparge/dunk twice for 5-10mins and this 8L would top me up for the boil.

My boil pot is 290mm (dia) x 235mm(H) it has 15.1 L stamped on the bottom.

I am thinking of mashing in 8L of water and sparge/rinse in another 4L x2. Allowing for about 1.5L  lost to the grains, I estimate that I will end up with about 14.5L going into the boil. That's not a lot of headspace in a 15.1L pot.

I was planning to boil for 60 mins and add extract at the end to pasteurize it, then cool and pitch etc. But as the extract is un hopped I am not sure if I should add it for the boil duration?  If I do this I am concerned about producing a high gravity wort that will affect the amount of bitterness I extract from the hops.

Can you give me feedback on qty of water for a stovetop BIAB with Sparge/Dunk as well as anything else you want to comment on.

My fermenter is 30L.

Thanks
Ian

I've never done mixed LME and all-grain, so I can't help with the question you asked. I just wanted to offer the idea that you could make a smaller, all-grain brew and use the BIAB tools to scale the recipe back to fit your pot.

Homemade, Can you open this BIABacus Excel file?

I worked your recipe to make an 11.5 L batch, that's using half of your LME can.

Your strike water for this is 8.5 L, (half sized batch) and a single sparge of 10 L. The BIABacus is showing the pot overflowing at the VIK, but maybe you can withhold some of the sparge water and add it during the boil.

Hopefully, others will chime in to provide feedback too.

EDIT: *************
Adjust strike water for this to 11.5 L and a single sparge of 7 L.

PistolPatch told me once, about NOT using too much sparge water per grain bill weight, but I don't remember what the calculation was, atm.

It looks like you will have 3 L of headspace after you pull the bag and squeeze it, plus the 4.24 L of evaporation loss, which it looks like you would be able to add all your sparge water along the way (during the boil).

Homemade wrote:Hi I am hoping I can get some assistance with this brew. It will be my first official stovetop BIAB.

Good stuff Ian. If I get a chance, I'll try and come back to you a bit later. In the meantime, we better get makka under way .

makka wrote:Finally got a 19L pot and bag and am thinking of Maxi Biab. I now am looking to do my first brew and am trying to see if I can convert a recipe to work with what I have.
The beer is from the GW book, Black Sheep Ale and so far I have chucked it into Beer Engine to get the right amounts of hops as the original recipe did not show AA values...

Great to see you are ready to roll makka . (Also, apologies I haven't got back to your PM in the last few days - I hadn't forgotten you though. Maybe this post will answer some PM questions anyway ).

Firstly, the pre-release version of the BIABacus replaces any of the old calculators on the site now including all maxi-BIAB calculators. The BIABacus includes all the good work done in those calculators, adds several more features and hopefully makes is easier to follow. I am not familiar with the Maxi-BIAB calculator file you have posted so what I have done instead, is attached below a Black Sheep Ale recipe we already have in the BIABacus.

Don't try to look at the whole sheet at once. Simply start at Section A and work your way through. The recipe isn't exactly the same as yours so you might want to change some ingredients.

After you have had a look through, you can play with some of the numbers in Section W, the Maxi-BIAB section. Unlike the Maxi-BIAB Calculator, the BIABacus will warn you if you are going to extremes. I have set up a safe scenario for you.

Makka, I know you are a good reader but I won't write any more here now as I don't want to throw too much at you.

The BIABacus file below isn't the same as the current official pre-release version. This version has a few fixes but also some different terminology we are experimenting with. The official link though might still be helpful I think.

Anyway, let us know your questions and we'll look after you of course ,
PP

Hi guys thanks for the interest thus far.

Re batch size: I really need to brew a "full" sized batch as I brew with a mate and we split the proceeds anything less just wont last! We have been doing two brews at a time recently with extract/steep speciality grains, 23L per batch. We don't get round to it too often so this keeps us liquid.

It seems to me the time doesn't reduce with batch size ( mash and boil stay the same?) so we r better to go big!

Having a bigger setup is really what we need, I have started putting it together but we want to experiment on the stovetop first.

After posting yesterday I saw the thread on MaxiBIAB (think that was what is was called) where a full batch mash was done on the stovetop with two (dunk) bucket sparges, seems that is what I need to do?

I have gone with an extract/grain option here as it seemed to be the next step if I was moving from extract/spec grains to all grain but maybe the LME is just getting in the way?

I can read xls files but I couldn't read it today, I tried on my iPad but it is an iPad 1 and it struggled. That program looks great and I look forward to using it.

FYI the recipe is Jamils from his book with John Palmer Brewing Gret styles (I think). I have taken the all grain version and worked in some LME rather than the extract version as the start point. Not sure why, it is my first time putting a recipe together and I used the principles from the paper "converting all grain to Extract/partial" by Ken Schwartz.

Anyway thks in advance for your help.

PS did I say I was hoping to brew on sat? No sweat if i have left it too late I am cool doing my way and catching up for improvement next time.

Cheers
Ian

Homemade wrote:PS did I say I was hoping to brew on sat?

What the? Just joking Ian .

EDIT: I think your plan is very good but I want to check it again tomorrow with a fresh brain. In the meantime...

Homemade wrote:Having a bigger setup is really what we need, I have started putting it together but we want to experiment on the stovetop first.

From your first post Ian, I know you want to move away from extract and into all-grain. You mentioned that you found a Maxi-BIAB thread here where you could get a massive amount of beer from a small pot. Things have come a long way since that thread. That thread has no volume or gravity measurements, requires a massive amount of labour and any recipe brewed under those conditions will lack integrity as every angle of the brewing spectrum is stretched to beyond ridiculous. Ignore that thread!

In reality, there are very few situations where sparging is warranted. As soon as you sparge, two more vessels are required for the smallest of gain. If you or anyone else wants more info on this, let me know and I'll give you some links to some buried posts we have on this. Anyway, ignore threads or posts that tell you you can get a million litres of beer from a 1 litre pot .

Your Plan

Firstly, that is excellent that you have, "Brewing Classic Styles." This makes everything easy. At a first glance, I think that your plan also looks great (except for you planning to sparge ).

Leave it with me for another day. It looks like Mad-Scientist has created a file which will help me for sure even though he has included sparging ]

While you are waiting, remember in your first post how you talked about confusing terminology? The first terminology term to ditch is 'batch size' as it can mean anything from how much beer you get into your bottles or kegs through to how much wort you have at the end of the boil.

I'm always struggling to explain how bad current brewing terminology is but when someone sends me a beer recipe and it says, "Batch Size - 23 litres," it's about ten times worse than if someone sent me a recipe for a loaf of bread where they are assuming I have exactly the same bread tin as they do.

So, any time you see someone use the word 'batch' ask them what they mean because their certainty of what it means is very likely to be different from your certainty.


PP

Hi all

I have had a look at the BIABacus file I was sent, thks very much for preparing that, and have adjusted it to take account of what I know or think I am aiming for.

I have tried to add information from the original receipe where I can.

I adjusted the pot height is that it reflected the 15.1L stamped on the bottom.

I have adjusted the volume going into the fermenter to 21L which is what is in the original recipe.

I have adjusted the ingredients but notice that both the grain bill in C and Hops in D have been adjusted under "what you will use" I assume this is takes account of extra needed for the BIAB calculations? The hops in particular increases quite a lot it goes from 23g to 53g?

I have played around with the section W and note that if I intend to sparge with 8L and add 13L to the fermenter it all seems to work out for the mash and boil with my kettle except the liquor to grain ratio seems low at 1.5? Maybe I dont understand what this is?

I have also put in 1L of water to add to the boil, I assume this is out of the total required in K?

I have been advised a protein rest is best for this type of recipe due to the wheat, I tried to allow for this in the mash instructions 'E' but not sure I got that right.

General questions: Do I need to mash and boil for 90 mins each? Is 60 mins each not enough?

Appreciate any input on this.

This Ian

HI PP et al...

I hope you see my earlier post of the BIABacus file I have been working on.

After that I have spent more time exploring the site and have found some information regarding MaxiBIAB in a thread in January of this year.

In that thread PP explains alot about the perils of sparing and diluting and basically trying to get more out of my system than the system can give.

I now realise my top up water will exceed the 30% dilution into fermentor rule and am I beginning to think I may not be able to do what I want here.

Given my experience with Kit+Kilo and extract brewing, where we basically took a concentrated wort and sometimes boiled it sometimes not and added it to the fermenter with large quantities of water and still got beer, I didnt see there was any problem with this approach.

Just wanted to let you know that I welcome new information and will bow to your superior knowledge on this subject.

Ian

Homemade,

You should brew this recipe this weekend. You converted it just fine, seems to me. I counted about 337 gravity points total, so the good news it should make that 1.050 at the end. I could not figure a way to put this into the BIABacus, so I'm running my the seat of my pants here....

Take your 3.1 kg of grain and mash it with as much water you can get in your 15.1 L pot, this will give you the best liquor to grain ratio. Do your mashing schedule as you planed and go to 90 mins. Pull the bag and squeeze. I wouldn't do a sparge here, just let that thought go. Bring to boil, add all your hops and boil for 90 mins.

In your 6.7 L pot add your LME and water and boil for 15 mins.

Both your pots together do not exceed the 23 L VIF, so no worries. Add sterile chilled water to both pots in the end and top up the fermenter to 23 L.

Homemade wrote:But as the extract is un hopped I am not sure if I should add it for the boil duration? If I do this I am concerned about producing a high gravity wort that will affect the amount of bitterness I extract from the hops.

I'm not sure about the hop extraction on this either.

Cheers!
~richard

EDIT: typo on size of pot.