mato, congratulations on our first BIAB and your English .

Let's take a look at your file first...

What's happened here is you've done several changes in Sections C and D that you didn't need to. The BIABacus does all that hard work for you. The left hand sides of Sections C and D should never be different from the original recipe. So, instead of 2167, 434 and 220 for the grains, you should have the original 5000, 1000 and 500. On the hop bill, on the left, everything should be 9.5% AA and then 18.0, 23.0 and 26.0 grams.

So, if you are given a BIABacus file, if it has no red warnings, all you really have to do is change the numbers in Section B to match your equipment, nothing more. So, it is easier and much less work than it looks. Before your next brew, run it by here and we can check that stuff for you pretty quickly .

Now let's look at your numbers...

The first thing is to not get too worried or hung up on numbers especially from a single brew. Numbers are a lot harder to record than is made out. For example, see in Section L, you have a Mash Volume of 20.5L? Wel Mash Volume is all your 'Strike Water Needed' plus the amount of space your grain bill takes up. Your VIK though is higher than this so there is a measurement error there somewhere. Don't worry about this. I still get odd measurements from time to time even when sober!!! There are a few other numbers that aren't confirming each other. For example, EOBV-A should always be less than EOBV as wort shrinks as it cools. So 17.3 L EOBV would become 16.6 EOBV-A.

Your evaporation is nothing to worry about. That will vary on every brew, especially if you brew outside. Your result was perfectly within reason especially considering it is very hard to measure VIK accurately.

What I'm looking for is a few numbers that tend to confirm each other. Your EIK in Section P looks dodgy (they often are) but your EOBE and EIF when we adjust for your 'Kettle to Ferementor Loss' tend to confirm each other so we need to take a small note of that. Those figures are telling us that there may well have been a problem.

The reason I say, "take a small note," is that anything could have gone wrong on a single brew. For example, your grain may not have been weighed correctly.

So, what can you do after one brew?

1. Make a "little note" that you may or may not have a kettle efficiency problem. Take good measurements on our next brew and this will help confirm if there is a problem.

2. Before your next brew, study this kettle efficiency checklist and see if anything jumps out at you.

And, the smaller the batch size, the more inaccurate the measurements so nothing to worry about at this stage mato. Brew on!


PP

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Great reply mato. Thorough but easy to read ,

Okay, I'm pleased to see you used the original figures from a calculator file for NRB mini-BIAB. I was wondering why the numbers worked out so well. All makes sense now .

TWN versus VIK (or VIB)

Just to let you know, in BIABacus version after PR1.3, we'll be using 'Volume into Boil - VIB' instead of 'Volume into Kettle (VIK)'.

mally has some nice visuals on this in this post which covers volumes. Another visual can be found in this BIABrewer post. It's harder to read and older but covers gravities and efficiencies as well as volumes.

The reason why 'Total Water Needed - TWN' is higher than VIK or VIB is because when you pour the grain into the kettle, it's a bit like you are pouring in a liquid sponge. In other words, when you pull the bag out, it is also taking out a lot of liquid with it as well. Drainign and squeezing can only do so much.

Make sense?

...

Regarding your extra 2 litres. We can see that 1.13 L came from your reduced kettle trub or what we call 'Kettle to Fermentor Loss (KFL)'. Your other 0.9L came from a difference in evaporation rate on the day y the look of things.

You ask, "If I wanted to end with 13 L VIF, I should start with 21 L instead of 23. Am I correct? Where did I get another 2 L? My KFL was only about 0,5L (estimating) because I was straining the wort through some filter cloth with some squeezing."

Two things...

I wouldn't use the filter cloth method myself because I think it is too much work and there is a greater risk of allowing a wild yeast into your wort. I would prefer to let a 'dirtier' volume onto the fermentor which will settle out during fermentation. It probably depends on the style a fair bit as well.

If you do want to keep filtering then the way to work the BIABacus is to go to Section X and fix your KFL at 0.3 L.

Don't make your brew day hard though mato .

...

Wow! 100 threads per centimetre!!! I want to see the pic please!!!

That's definitely a major problem. Did it take a billion hours for it to drain? Would love to hear more on this mato.


PP

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Excellent!

Okay, on the threads bit, it now sounds like your bag is actually too coarse. We want to see 30 to 40 horizontal and vertical threads per centimeter.

Thanks to you mato, I have just edited that list of ten things to eleven . Five and six now read as...

5. Bag is too small and restricts liquor flow. Your BIAB bag needs to fully line the kettle.
6. Bag porosity is too small. 35 vertical and horizontal threads per cm works well.

So if 5 makes sense then great, otherwise, just brewe again.


PP

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Ramarok, can I reply here in a day or two? It'll take a lot of writing and I wouldn't mind doing it while I'm having a beer.\

Great question though.

Also, please let me know the following...

Firstly, where did the first five batches come from? In other words, can you give me links to the original recipes? The more info you can give me on this the better as I can see the answer here taking an hour or more to write and so please answer this and the below as thoroughly as you can.

Secondly, have you read enough here that you understand that high gravity brews are less efficient than low gravity brews?

And one quick answer for you... The BIABacus is set up so that on an average gravity brew, you'll get more than you expect. Lot of reasons for doing that. Regardless, the auto-efficiency can be over-ridden in Section X.

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Ramarok wrote: I have the recipe in the attached biabacus file. I did not adjust the grain bill to match the "What you will use" in Section C, but I still hit my volume and gravity measurements as noted in Section L & M as those were taken on brew day.

Is there a way to correct the efficiency measurements in Biabacus to reflect the "smaller" grain bill?

Hey Ramarok, I think I understand this question above and will give it a go, whilst PP sorts you out on the other stuff.

Did you use the grain bill on the left hand side (the original grain bill design) and still hit you volume/gravity sets? Your actuals in section L and section M reflect that you did hit your numbers very well, as close as any homebrewer can.

I played 20 questions on your file. In section x, I came up with a 11.9% - "Adjust Auto Kettle Efficiency by" value to match the grain bill you used. It is now the same on both sides. This is a good thing and makes perfect sense. EDIT: I got a 9% adjusted efficiency for an OG of 1.067, so an 11.9% number seems logical for a 1.055 brew. If this answers you question you can now read your efficiences in section P.


MS

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Fine job Ian, just a couple of questions really.

You have over ridden the evaporation rate, what is this figure based on ?

You have listed S04 yeast, this is a beast and is listed with an attenuation of 75% so you might end up lower than 1.014, and don't be surprised if it takes only 3-4 days.



Yeasty

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yetiboy wrote:Yes I did change the KFL to 9L as I think this is what I lost on my last brew.
Is this a worry?

Not a worry apart from the word "think" but using data from just one brew will end up in you chasing your own tail. The Biabacus defaults are pretty much spot on and should be used for several brews until you can get an average figure. Only then can you alter the defaults with confidence. There are a lot of variables when it comes to evaporation and each brew will differ slightly. Keeping good brew notes is key to dialling in the Biabacus to your equipment.



Yeasty

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Ramarok, that is great you understand that the higher the gravity, the lower the kettle efficiency. Nice!

Ramarok wrote:I guess that brings me to another question about Biabacus though. Does it adjust the built in efficiency based on size of grain bill? That is if the coding is set for a 72% efficiency, would that change in the background depending on if I entered a 20 lb bill instead of a 11 lb bill? I'm guessing not as that would be a pain to code. =)

Yes, the BIABacus does that for you.

The problem with the BIABacus if you have used other software is that it is actually really simple for the user (not the coder!) once they see the logic. For a start, in other software, you have to make a heap of decisions that you actually don't know the answers to. Setting up an equipment profile is tremendously complicated and fraught with danger. BIABrewer.info spent a lot of time on Beersmith2, helping with the beta testing and then after release writing threads like this, and many others, for many months to make it easy to explain how to set up something like BeerSmith2 but they gave up because it isn't easy. Read that thread and follow all the links .

Compare that to...

The BIAbacus (written after BeerSmith2 but based on the trusty old 'The Calculator' written 7 years ago) makes all the decisions for you and if they prove to be wrong over several brews, you over-ride the defaults in Section X. All you have to do is put in your kettle height and diameter. End of story!!!

Many similiar comparisons of complexity versus simplicity between commercial software and the BIAbacus can be written.

Ramarok wrote:I can export the recipes you need in a beer.xml file if that would help though. The recipes were of course designed for a 75% Total (brewhouse) Efficiency in Beersmith. I realize that really doesn't mean much when it comes to Biabacus though.

This 'brewhouse efficiency' thing is a disaster in any software that uses it. It doesn't cause problems for BIAB, it causes problems for everyone. Have a read of this post. You'll see why I asked for a lot more info from you.

You replied with the excellent offer to post a .bsm file. Please post one .bsm file of your TABC Barrel Brew and I'll show you how to get almost the same answers from each program. (Some of what Mad_Scienmtist has said above will apply there). But use the BIABacus because it is 'intelligent' brewing software (even though just a spreadsheet). It has thousands of hours of thought put into it to makes things easy for you.

Ramarok wrote:...and then take an average of those for that setting in future recipes based on the volumes/gravity readings I got doing those batches.

Yes, you must collect average figures as firstly, recording accurate measurements on a single brew is very difficult for many reasons. Secondly, even if you can measure accurately, things like evaporation will vary from day to day and other things like kettle trub can vary from recipe to recipe or brewing practice to brewing practice.

Ramarok wrote:I guess I'm just worried that if I don't figure this out then on my next recipe I do in Biabacus if I am shooting for a 1.055 and use the grain bill adjusted under the "What you will use" section then I will way overshoot my estimated OG and end up with a 7%abv beer (not necessarily a bad thing) instead of a 5.5%abv that is way out of style for what I'm looking for.

Assuming the BIABacus evaporation estimate is good (and it works quite nicely on most days for most brewers), then, if you have everything else right, on a normal gravity brew, we have it set up so that you will end up with about the right volume but at higher gravity than expected.

Why?

Because this is the safest outcome for inexperienced brewers. The only downside to getting the volume expected at higher gravity is that you get more beer (after you dilute it to the right gravity). This is a lot better than finding yourself with a 1.040 beer instead of the 1.050 beer you wanted. (Do you really want to be adding DME to your nice all-grain brew?) But, if you find yourself continually having to dilute a little (which does no harm) then you may or may not choose to adjust the BIABacus auto-efficiency figure to +x% in Section X.

The safest path is to leave everything alone until you have collected enough figures.

Also remember that the BIABacus aims to teach you about brewing as well. Play with it and watch how grain bills, volumes and efficiencies (kettle and fermentor) change. No other software can do this.

Other Links to Study on This

Read the posts below and any that follow on for more info on this whole area.

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=2091&hilit=bsm
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2497&p=35626&hilit=bsm#p35626
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2096&p=30484&hilit=bsm#p30484
Maybe... viewtopic.php?f=5&t=286&p=34106&hilit=bsm#p34103
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=286&p=28396&hilit=bsm#p28396
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2497&p=35626&hilit=bsm#p35626

I think reading the above, which will take a while, may even lead to you being able to answer your own question.

But post your .bsm file up here anyway. I'd like to see it.


PP

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Efficeicny Car Analogy

Smyrna, thanks for picking up my typo mate and thanks to whoever edited the post for me .

brewdave wrote:...I've attached (unless I forget) my BIABacus file and was hoping someone could have a quick look over it to make sure I'm not missing anything...

Dave, I don't have GW's book so I can't double-check you have the original ingredient amounts correct. I assume you do though.

Yeasty has worked out that the best number to put in the top line of Section D for GW recipes is 23.0 L so change it to that. This will increase the amount of hops you need to use from 34.8 to 37.8 grams.

Everything else looks fine to me .

Different Kettle Efficiencies

Regarding your question on different efficiencies, this is nothing for you to worry about as the BIABacus takes care of all those adjustments for you. It's a bit like cars driving up a never-ending hill. The steepness of the hill is gravity. The distance you want to climb up the hill is volume and the fuel you need to get there is your grain bill.

All we actually need to know from Graham Wheeler, the other driver, is the steepness of the hill (original gravity) and the type of fuel he used (ratios of grains used in his grain bill). Nothing more is needed. In other words, we don't need to know how many miles per gallon GW's car uses.

We do need to know how many miles per gallon our own car uses though up different gradients and distances but the BIABacus does that automatically so...

No worries if you use the BIABacus:party:,
PP

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brewdave wrote: I'm planning on doing a Bass from the Graham Wheeler book

Good book that Dave, I've done a few of the recipes and they have all been great. I always use the 23L volume and amounts and as PP has said this is EOBV, hot or ambient I don't know for certain but I tend to take it as EOBV-A.



Yeasty

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