Glad that made sense otr .

In section H, you need to have the fermenting temperature filled in (first line) and the 'Req. VOlumes of CO2' (fifth line).

The fermentation temperature tells us how much CO2 is likely to be held in the wort beofre priming. For example, a lager has more CO2 held in solution at the end of femernetation than an ale as it is fermented colder. Cold liquids can hold more CO2 in solution than warm ones.

The required volumes of CO2 tell us how carbonated we want the beer to be.

Your file looks good.


PP

• • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Australia
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No probs Don,

The Req Volumes is what you want the beer to be carbonated to (the total Target CO2). You'd get this from BJCP guidelines. The residual calculation comes from your fermenting temperature. The higher your fermenting temperature, the more priming sugar you will have to use to achieve your desired volumes of CO2.

More info in this subject can be found here.

As for the hop bill, you shouldn't adjust back. You'll need to go back to my second last post here and do that search on the 'Tinseth, Rager, Garetz' thing. Try and find the post I did a few years back that has a pic of a BeerSmith screenshot. If you find it, can you post it here? It will explain perfectly why you should not adjust the IBU's if you know the EOBV-A.


PP

• • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Australia
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Thanks for finding that for me Don. I've edited the subject of the post now with the phrase "Tinseth, Rager, Garetz Beersmith Pic" so I'll be able to find it again easily now. Very much appreciated .

And, if we don't hear from you before the weekend...

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Welcome to the forum Gabe ,

That looks like a tasty recipe and from what I can tell from the report, you have filled out everything correctly and I think you can go ahead as is. It would be good though to check one or two things in the file. To post it, do the following...

1. Click on Full Editor
2. Just below the line that has the buttons 'Preview' 'Summit' 'Save' and Cancel' you'll see 'Upoad attachment'. Underneath that you will see a Browse' button. Click on that and then look for your BIABacus file. Select it and then press the button that says 'Add the file'. A box will pop up and it will upload the file in about 30 seconds.
4. Press 'Submit'

The above will attach the file at the end of your post. There is also an option though to place it at a particular place in the post. Have a play around and preview your post before submitting and you'll get the idea .

If you are worried about filling your kettle too high just hold back about 5 L and add it to the boil. Doing this will result in the BIABacus telling you that you need to use a little more grain. If you've already bought your grain, don't worry as the BIABacus defaults are very generous and should cover you anyway.

Sparging should really only be contemplated in the following situation - when your pot is both to small and the recipe is a very high gravity one.

If we don't hear from you before you brew .
PP

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Good on you Gabe ,

That's a pretty good effort I think on your first crack at the BIABacus . Here are the changes I have made and one comment.

1. The first thing I look for is red warnings and there is one saying: WARNING: Mash volume exceeds kettle size. The easiest and most snesible way of dealing with this is to hold back some water from the mash and add it before the boil. Look at Section W and you'll see I have typed an 8 in there.

2. Moved Flaked Wheat from Miscellaneous to Section B as this is a fermentable. This means the weight of your ingredients has slightly changed now and your flaked wheat has been scaled along with the other grains. As a matter of interest, look at the bottom right of Section C. It says 5691 grams. If you remove the 8 from Section W, the 5691 drops to 5206. This means that holding back the water means yo have to use a little extra grain. This saves a lot of mucking around and the extra grain can actually increase quality. The three links in this post give more info on this area.

3. Corrected some EBC values as colour estimate was way over. (Main culprit was the Tasted Pale Malt).

4. In Section D, you have 5.5 gallons for the EOBV-A. This is actually correct but the original recipe simply says 'Size: 5.5 gallons' which tells us nothing really. Luckily there was enough other info for me to use the BIABacus to discover that the original author actually did mean EOBV-A. Many brewers though when they say size, mean Volume into Fermentor. In most recipe reports, EOBV-A is very difficult, more commonly impossible, to determine. We got lucky here. (More info on this here.)

5. If you look at the hop section, you'll see that I have put the AA% from the original recipe on the left hand side and moved the AA%'s you had there to the left. I have assumed that those were the AA% of the hops you will be buying or have bought. The left hand side is always used for whatever AA%'s were in the recipe you are copying. The right hand side is used for the AA%'s of the hops you will be using.

So, the weight of hops you will need has changed slightly now.

6. Adjusted mash temperature down to 67.2 C / 153 F.

So Gabe, buy/use the amounts you see on the right hand side of Sections C and D and you are good to go .

Good stuff ,
PP

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No probs Gabey ,

I think the only thing that I need to answer above is about pouring the water through the bag.

There is no problem in doing this except that it can cause some labour and equipment problems. Pouring hot water through the bag while the bag is still above the kettle does not work out practically on most set ups. So, instead you have to squeeze and then pull the bag from the kettle first and then put it into a food-grade plastic bucket or something. Then you would add the 8 litres of hot water that you have heated in a very large saucepan to the bucket. Then you would lift and squeeze the bag again.

If you do decide to pour the water thorugh the grain, then move the 8 L in Section W to 'Water Used in a Sparge'. You'll see the grain required will drop back down to 5206 grams.

The Sweet Liquor Shop posts I mentioned above talk more on the ins and outs of all this and why the grain amount varies.


PP

• • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Australia
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Hi there Thomas and welcome to the forum ,

The best thing to do with this one Thomas is to dowload a copy of the BIABacus PR 1.3 from here. Read that first post there carefully as a first look at the BIABacus will look scary. But, it is easier than it looks and it is the only software that handles maxi-BIAB.

All you need to do is fill out Sections A to D as best as you can. Once you have done that, upload the file here and we'll add a few things, fix any errors and tell you what the critical things to focus on are.

If you have any trouble working out how to upload the file or with anything else, I made some notes on this a bit above in post #1510.


PP

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long hop bill

Thomas, very nice job on the file .

One correction. On the first line of the hop bill change the 60 under grams to 7.8. That will get your Tinseth down to 55.4 so it looks like they are using Tinseth.

Second correction is instead of writing 6100g and 250g in Section C, just ype 6100 and 250. When you get rid of the g's, you'll see4 the right hand side of Section C will populate.

Now get ready to die of boredom...

As you have found the spreadsheet form limits us a bit when we gt over 8 jops or grains. We can only deal with this in a clumsy way but such recipes are rare.

Here's what you do...

Look for the hops that are being added at the same time. In this case we'll look at the 1 min hops. We have 23.5 grams @ 11.7%, 33.0 grams @ 13.0% and 37.6 grams at 6.0%. Multiply as follows 23.5 * 11.7 + 33.0 * 13.0 + 37.6 * 6.0 = 929.55

Instead of putting the 1 min additions in separately, you now put them in on one line as I have done on the attached file. On the left hand side of Section D you'll see we have 929.6 grams and on the right we have 1084.4.

1084.4 / 929.6 = 1.166. All you have to do now is multiply the original hops by 1.166. For example the 23.5 grams of Centennial becomes 27.4 grams.

Yep, I know it is a PITA but that is all we can do for these rare recipes atm. In real life, once you understand the above maths, it only takes a few seconds to work out. There is one further problem though ...

Let' say the Centennial hops you are using are 10.2 AA% while the ones in the original recipe are 11.7 AA%. You will then need to do one further calculation. You will need to multiply the 27.4 grams above by 11.7 / 10.2. In other words, you will need 31.4 grams.

You still awake?

The big problem...

The biggest problem we have here is time. Answering questions like yours well requires not a few minutes but sometimes several hours. Personally I had hoped that past members here whom I and a few others had spent the hours on would pass the baton on as it were. Unfortunately, most people just do a smash and grab of our time, say a quick thanks and rarely pass on the education. I know they don't mean to, especially in the excitement of learning how to brew but we are starting to realise here now that we are going to have to forget our hope that donations of time would get naturally passed on .

This failure to hand on knowledge (a time donation) also creates a real Catch 22. For example, I can't find the time to write answers into articles that will work for a group as too many individual's forum answers are not being answered. I have found no time for the BIABacus in maybe three months.

So my problem is that I have run out of time this week for individuals let alone articles or BIABacus work!

Here's where I think we should go.

Maxi-BIAB is a very complex interplay of variables Thomas so can you do/study the following...

1. Use the Advanced Search feature here and look for posts made by me that contain the word 'juggle'. This will lead you to some posts that explain this interplay.

2. Use the Advanced Search feature here and look for posts made by me that contain the phrase 'sweet liquor shop posts'. Find and read those posts.

3. Use the Advanced Search feature here and look for posts made by me that contain the phrase 'extreme brewing'. Find and read those posts that relate to being sensible about how much beer you can brew given a small kettle.

4. After you have done the above and understand the knowledge being conveyed, play around with Section W. Have a few beers and see the effect that this has on red warnings and how much grain you need to use.

5. Find out where you will be buying your hops from. Ask them what the AA% of each hop is. Type those percentages into the right hand side of Section D.

6. You've done really well with Sections A to D. Try filling out E to H. There isn't much to do there as only a few fields in each section are required. I've done Section E for you already with a few changes on time and temps .

7. Once you've done the above as best as you can, then post up your file again and maybe a few points on what you have learned and I or someone else will give some further tips or give yo a final thumbs up.

Nice work so far
PP

P.S. I have called the file an American IPA as that is what it really is. An English IPA is way different .

• • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Australia
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Good on you Thomas,

Don't hesitate to ask any small questions between now and posting your file. There are many questions to be answered when it comes to Maxi-BIAB. Normally I or one or two others would take the time to take you through it one on one but my hope here is that you can be a bit of a test case.

I'm hoping that in searching for the keywords I wrote above that, over a beer or two, you will be able to make some considerable knowledge leaps forward on your own. In other words, you could be the first new brewer we haven't really baby-sat on demand. (That's not a dis-credit to those before you, it's just been the culture of the site to date and mainly due to the fact that we never realised how unique any single home brewers situation could be .)

If, after a few beers, you aren't learning anything Thomas, come back here and let us know where the info gaps are. If the opposite, please try and take a note of what posts/threads helped you most and we'll use these down the track.

Apologies that you are being the guinea pig and hopes that you will enjoy the challenge.


PP

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Good stuff Guinea Pig Thomas ,

But, hold on, there is one thing you have missed and it is an important principle. The principle is to put as much water, preferably all, into your mash.

So, my first question to you is, "Why will you only be adding half your water to the mash?"

This and some of your questions above are telling me that I should have given you one more term to search for and that term is 'washing machine'. (See, you are already having great value as a guinea pig Thomas ).

I'm hoping that if you search on that you will be able to answer at least a few, maybe more, of your questions above. It might take you 30 minutes or so to find, read and digest the essence of my washing machine posts but if you are able to do this, then you will be in the top 5% (probably one percent) who understand this very important principle.


PP

P.S. I haven't downloaded your BIABacus file above on purpose because if I had, I would have written on it (the trees) rather than the forest. I'm out of here for about 24 hours but I reckon 'getting' the washing machine will take you about that long or more anyway .

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[Shit!!! I just went to post my reply below and find you have just posted Thomas. . I'm not sure what to do now as I am out of steam. I think I'll just post what I have done and we'll catch up again tomorrow ]

Ah, I have downloaded your file and see what you were aiming at Thomas. You have done well.

[I mentioned above about time being a problem. PR 1.3, for some reason, does not have a warning working that tells you when you are mashing too thick. I've fixed this in some later mini-release versions but your posts have shown me that we actually need to split that warning to cover two scenarios. Nice guinea pig work again .]

It's still important though to study/read the 'washing machine' stuff. What I write below will assume you have found a few posts that attempt to explain why, if you can fit all the water need for a brew into your kettle then you should.

What the BIABacus should Have Warned You On

What we have going on here in your brew is that we are stretching your kettle size too far and the BIABacus version we are using is not warning you of this. (No other software goes near this area so we can't be too critical though eh .

What you have atm is that you are adding about 12 L to 7.5 kg of grain for the mash. This is a bit like just spitting on the grain . We need more water in the mash and your kettle size simply won't allow it. I've written a few posts on the forum on expecting too much from your kettle. To find these posts, I think you will have to search for posts by me that contain the word "extreme".

What to Do Now

Earlier I mentioned, or at least hinted, at how difficult maxi-BIAB questions are to deal with. No other program can actually deal with it. I'm a bit frustrated because two essential warnings are not working in PR 1.3. I have these working on a version I have here but am reluctant to release a PR 1.4 until I have all the improvements I am aware of done.

I don't think we'll get time to put out a BIABacus PR 1.4 until after Xmas so what we will have to do here, is to set a few guidelines for your situation...

1. "Make sure that SWN in Section K is at least double the kilograms on the right hand side of Section C."

2. "Make sure Volume into Kettle (VIK)" in Section K is not too high.

Apologies Thomas that you have to check this manually for now. I have attached a file below though of what would work with your kettle.

Also...

In your file, I am changing mash and boil times to 90 minutes. You can change the boil time back to 70 if you want as long as you are conscious of the fact that 90 is recommended. On the mash you are much better off doing a 90 minute mash and zero mash-out than a 75 and 15.

Juggling the BIABacus file below.

I think the BIABacus I have attached below is a nice balance for what you can expect from your kettle. The mash volume of the kettle is not being tested, nor is the Volume into Kettle (VIK) testing the kettle limits. We are avoiding a sparge (more vessels and labour) at very little cost (approx 200 grams of grain - move the 3 in Section W to the input two lines above and watch the grain requirement change in Section C.)

Let us know how you are going.

Your scenario is about as hard as it gets Thomas. If I had time to give you the latest BIABacus file, things would be a little easier but that is not an option for the moment. (And, as I said above, no other software comes anywhere near your scenario although it is quite common.)

Anyway, on your next post here, can you let me know if you have found, read and understood any good posts with the keywords I have been mentioning? Can you give a link to those posts? I want to know what your level of understanding is behind Section W. You linking the posts that have helped you most would be a great service to me.


PP

• • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Australia
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Lol on your girlfriend. Good on her .

Thomas, you are doing really well. That is no small feat to get your head around the washing machine business. It's a thing that very few brewers are aware of. The only area in which the analogy falls down is in the fact that washing machines spin the clothes which makes them a bit more efficient at 'cleaning' of course. In brewing though, we don't have that spin available to us. Even squeezing the bag doesn't come close to a spin. Anyway, it's the best analogy I have for now.

Re your question on whether you should be pure BIABing or not, I think as long as you just stick to sensible dilutions then you are pretty much pure BIABing in spirit. The real idea of BIAB is just to avoid sparging and therefore save using additional vessels and heat sources.

In your last post,you mention topping up with boiling water. If you can use a kitchen kettle or saucepan to bring your top up water to the boil then do that as it will save time. If not, just add cold water to the kettle after you pull the bag.

Small batch BIAB is not to be sneezed at. There are a lot of advantages to it although measurements can become a lot harder. For example you are dealing with weighing out sometimes only a few grams of hops.

...

Just one last thing I didn't see until bow for some reason. In the file, in Section D, you've re-typed in the minutes. You only need to type the minutes in again on the right if you will be adding them at a different time from that specified on the left. So, in your case, you can blank all those minutes on the right out and nothing in 'What yo will use...' will change.

You'll also have to change the 1 minute hop mix calcs I wrote a few posts ago. Did yo ever get your head around those or do you want me to do them again for this latest file?

You've been thrown some really hard stuff Thomas and I'm impressed at how well you are absorbing it all.


PP

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