2nd BIAB Attempt-Diff Recipe And Other Questions

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• • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From United States of America
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Bill, knowing Nuff, the main thing he will be worried about is getting clear links to the original recipe as he as much as anyone will want to see your question answered.

Firstly, a BIAB recipe is no different from any other all-grain recipe. Secondly, let's not worry about where you were meant to publish the question for now. Instructions are written in the pre-release thread but are a little hidden so it is no big issue.

What is a big issue for now is that we need the links to your sources on HBT. Put links to the actual post not the threads so we don't have to read through a thread of two hundred posts etc .

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Nuff also spoke on high versus low integrity recipes. Many recipes might appear as high integrity recipes but often fall short. I have three questions for you before I can offer anything more here...

1. Where are the links to the actual posts you have referred to?
2. Have you carefully studied, A perfect example of a low integrity recipe?
3. Do the recipes you are copying from address all the issues in 2 above?

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The problem with all-grain is that it is very forgiving. I can give you the following recipe...

Batch Size: 19 L
Grain Bill: 5 kg
Hop Bill: So many ounces at such a time.

The problem is that from those guidelines, you could brew any number of different beers depending on how you interpreted my crappy instructions. The recipe I posted above is actually totally meaningless. But, that is the way many recipes are posted on the internet and in some books!

So, what I want to see is the original two links. That way I can see if the original recipe/s have integrity. Just because a moderator on a forum posted it does not tell you anything unfortunately. I'll show you why once you post the link because unless that moderator is one in a million, there will be holes in the recipe. I know you will find that hard to believe but humour me.


PP

• • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Australia
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Thanks PP.. here is the info.. While yooper's has had many successes, I am leaning toward the velvet recipe.. mainly because of the interaction with the highly successful brewer at Firestone Walker. He is an commercial brewer of high renown. The recipe percentages are similar enough but some points well taken. One major diff is he likes American Fuggles very much.. while Yooper does not care for them at all. Personal tastes

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f68/yoopers" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... ut-210376/
Further reinforcement of successes buried in the many pages.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/fw-velv" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... ne-290065/
Post #7 for recipe. Further documentation with Firestone Walker brewer later in post.. however he reinforced the grain changes in the recipe as well as the mash schedule

I need to be more observant and become more learned about recipe integrity. However, w/regards to Batch Size.. I believe it is generally accepted that batch size is the volume into the fermenter. VIF or more likely VOW.

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Good on you Bill ,

This is going to take some time to write a decent answer here so it might take me a little while to get back to you.

First question though is on the first line of Section C, you have 1.062 on the left and 1.058 on the right. Is there any reason for this? I'm going to assume the 1.058 shouldn't be there.

While I'm trying to work out what program they used for the recipe etc, just have a re-think on the sparging thing. Here is something I wrote on this the other day.

This concept of kettle efficiency being a variable is not well known because other software can't handle it. The misconception that efficiency is fixed leads to all sorts of misinformation. It's one of the many reasons why people might think sparging improves efficiency when it doesn't. What happens is they do their first brew and it's a 1.065 beer. They full-volume it and think their efficiency is poor so they hear that sparging improves things. Next beer they sparge but they have only brewed a 1.050 beer. Their efficiency jumps and they think it is because of sparging when the real reason was that they were brewing a lower gravity beer. They then go and post everywhere how much sparging improves their kettle efficiency .

Other reasons people can jump to this conclusion are...

1. Making an assumption from one brew. Numbers for one brew cannot be trusted.
2. On the first full volume brew they may have only mashed for 60 minutes, On the sparged one they end up leaving the grain in contact with water for longer. Same result would have occurred if they just full-volumed mashed for longer.
3. First brew may have been a 60 minute boil. They then realise they should boil for 90 mins. This also increase efficiency a little as the grain gets washed in more water.
4. Different water on different brew days. Municipal water can vary greatly sometimes in a single day. This can affect kettle efficiency.
5. Different grain batches.

There's more things but that will give you a good idea I reckon .

So, don't get trapped into making unnecessary work for yourself. When I come back here, I will show you how to set the BIABacus up with a sparge but doing one is just creating work for you for no gain at all.

Nice job on filling the BIABacus out btw mate . On your next run, make sure you use Version PR1.3K as PR1.3 uses old terminology. K is in the first thread of the pre-release thread, stickied in this forum.

Back to you a bit later on,
PP

• • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Australia
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Hey Bill ,

There's a few questions etc to deal with so I'll jump straight in.

Firstly, your file has come up as unprotected. In other words, you can click on any cell in the sheet. I think this happen s in OpenOffice if you save it under something other than an .xls file. Just be really careful as lots of formulas are hidden in cells so it is easy to accidentally wipe them.

For the purpose of this exercise, I am going to quickly re-write your BIABacus into PR1.3K so as we can use the same terminology so open the file attached here. Hopefully it will also stay protected for you.

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That's great re the OG thing. Putting the 1.058 on the right of Section C to make it less strong is the correct thing to do. Nice work!

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I worked out that the recipe report comes from BeerSmith and that the original brewer's 'VAW - Volume of Ambient Wort' was 6 gallons. Remember above, how you wrote that you believed that batch size usually means 'VIF - Volume into Fermentor'? Well, that is not right. Some brewers mean that and otehr brewers mean VAW. These are two different numbers and the problem is, for a successful recipe duplication, we really need to know VAW and that can be difficult or impossible to find in most recipe reports.

Please stop here now and have a really good read of this thread. Make sure you understand the difference between VAW and VIF.

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Knowing the VIF of a recipe is useless without also knowing the 'KFL - Kettle to Fermentor Loss'. If with your equipment, you have a VIF of 23 L and a KFL of 6 L, you will need more hops than the brewer who gets 23 L VIF and 2 L of KFL. Only knowing VIF is useless.

Now, we got lucky with this recipe as I was able to do some advanced calcs and discover that when this brewer said "Batch Size: 6.00 gal" they meant VAW. Lucky for us. We'll come back to this next.

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You'll have read in the other thread I linked above the problems with using IBU numbers from another program. These are almost always meaningless so I have deleted the 33.2 you had written on the second line of Section D. THe second line of Section D should only be used when designing a recipe. When copying a recipe, it should be used as a very last resort. What do we need?

We need the VAW, the AA% of the hops, the weight of the hops and time added so we are good to go there. The BIABacus calculates your IBU's as 27.9. This will often not agree with the original recipe report dur to either or both of the following. The other program uses an incorrect formula and/or uses a different estimate formula than Tinseth.

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When mashing with BIAB,you want to do a 90 minute mash. So, you'll want to do 45 mins at 156 F and 45 mins at 159 F. I have done this in Section E.

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Removing the red volume warning. There are many ways to reduce the chances of getting a red volume warning....

1. Reduce the desired VIF in section B (try the things below first.)
2. Reduce the boil time (not recommended for most styles but here we can knock it down to 75 mins - I've done this.)
3. Go to Section G and H and use some advanced trub management methods.
4. Go to Section W and type a figure beside 'Water Added Before the Boil'. I have typed in 3L. In your file, try deleting it and adding it back in. Watch what happens to the amount of grin you will use in Section C and the Mash Volume in Section K.
5. In Section W, you can also use some other dilutions but adding before the boil is best for quality.
6. In Section K you can also use some for the water in a sparge. As we have discussed this is more work for no gain if your pot can handle full=0volume but it's also a lot of work in a port that is too small. Try removing the 3L we had in "Water Added Before the Boil" and instead move it to 'Water Used in a Sparge'. See how it does not affect the grain bill? You might save a few cents in grain but create a lot of work. It's your decision though when it comes to a kettle being too small.

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I think that is enough for now but come back with any questions Bill.


PP

• • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Australia
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Wow, there is so much I do NOT understand.. and so much to TRY to understand. Thank you for putting so much into my questions. I know it will take me a couple of days to try to understand all you have written combined with the ramifications to changes.

1. Is there a Glossary on BIAB. Possibly one is not needed. In my prior reply, which you alluded to, I mentioned VIF and VOW. I don't know where I got VOW but I meant VAW My thinking being it made no sense to measure trub if it can be left in the kettle and made no sense to measure it hot as the volume would shrink as it cooled.
2. I did read your analysis of the ABA thread and think I understand it.. but, putting it to practice involves a LOT of analysis which I could easily get wrong as I don't understand this process the way YOU writers do. That WILL take time
3. re the change in Sect D. As with my modification of the OG in Sect C.. I now understand (?) I would only put a number in there if I wanted to modify the IBU's within the style. In this case, the style IBU's range from 25-40. If I wanted my stout to have less IBU's.. say at 25.. I would then put that number in the box.
4. Tied with that question.. in BIABacus, is there any bitterness changes accounted for FO and DH? They DO add bitterness, despite how small. I have a formula for that.
5. Thanks for the Mashing input.
6. Regarding the red warning. Options noted. I will try to mash in a larger pot this time and put the pot in either a water conditioning bath or oven to try to maintain the mash as closely as possible. I think next time (or possibly this time) I will reduce the volume (VAW) to either 2.5 or 2.25 gallons and see what the SS says.

Again.. thanks for all the true work you do. To me it is mind blowing the brains behind all of this. More, thanks for the work you all do in helping us UNDERSTAND what is behind it.

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