Finally - my first BIAB brew day coming up

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Good on you Streamer ,

Sorry the reply here has been a bit slow, quiet few days on the forum. Let's have a look at your questions and file...

Okay, I'm a bit confused on why you scaled the recipe to TWN rather than to your desired Volume into Fermenter. Your pot can hold 15 gallons so might need some more info from you on that. Normally, if you don't have a small kettle, you would scale to what your fermenter can safely hold or, if kegging, to how much you want to get into the keg (Volume into Packaging plus Fermenter to Packaging Loss).

As for the hot water question, the answer is nearly always, "No". See this post for more info. Even if you did have an appropriate hot water heater (e.g. instantaneous) you need to be careful not use something like a garden hose - use food-grade buckets or food-grade hose to get the water into the kettle.

As for your file, top stuff .

The only error is, and it isn't yours, is PR1.3T is inversely calculating Miscellaneous ingredients. So instead of using "0.83" of a whirfloc tablet, it should actually be 0.3 of a tablet (13.91 YourVAW / 23.0 OrigVAW *0.5 tablet).

Let us know on the 6 gallon TWN reasoning before you set off.


PP

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Streamer wrote:What am I missing?

The file! .

And the fermenter photo .

5 gallon will be easier and more suitable for your kettle size.

More when the file and pic come .

Until then, congratulations Streamer . Hope you enjoyed the day .

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I wonder what size your auto-syphon is? The 1/2" ones, I found are hard to get/keep going. The 3/8" ones are much better. Another problem that can occurr is when the ID of your transfer hose is larger than the ID of the cane.

If you have a ball-valve on the kettle and do use it at all for any reason during the brew, you're stuck with cleaning and sanitising it so maybe put a pick-up tube on it?

Try and post a pic of your grain bag lying on say a tile floor that has 200mm square tiles. Someone did that the other day and I thought, "Yep, too coarse."

AS for efficiency numbers in Section P, first thing is you can't rely on figures from one brew. Secondly, "hot" numbers are harder to measure. There's a 12% discrepancy in your kettle efficiencies (EIK and EAW) whereas, they should be, in theory, identical. As you mentioned in your post, some of your numbers were also a guess so we really can't conclude much from this one brew. (And small batch sizes are even harder to measure.)

The most important measurement, at the end of the day is your Gravity of Ambient Wort. Yours came in at 1.063 versus the desired 1.058 so, you could have used Section N to work out how much water to add to the fermenter to dilute it to the right gravity (about 1 litre would have done it). Always have some "good" water (boiled and cooled) ready to add at the end of the brew day as this is what you will hopefully have to do on most brew days. In other words, the BIABacus, aims to have you end up with a slightly higher gravity than you want so as you don't get stuck in the unfortunate position of too low gravity (such as on a humid, still day where evaporation won't be as high as on a dry, windy day).

...

Lots of headspace for this batch in that fermenter. If you intend to transfer to secondary/bottling bucket, consider running a blow-off tube (instead of air-lock) into the secondary now so as the secondary fills with CO2 before your transfer.

Great to see your fermenter with no tap! I've done the same and cleaning etc is now a two second job. If you had probs with your auto-syphon with the kettle though, you'll get the same with the fermenter so consider getting a racking cane (3/8" or smaller) and appropriate hose. Take your air-lock out and insert the cane so it is about half-way into the wort. Get something like a tomato sauce squeeze bottle, clean and sanitise it. Squeeze it and put the nozzle on the end of the hose to start the syphon. Once started, gradually lower the cane until it hits the bottom. A small amount of trub will be sucked up but then it will run clear. (That's a free tip for you that I really wanted to save for the new site but there you go.)

I think that's it Streamer ,
PP

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I think you're exactly right about the auto siphon. Mine is 1/2" and the ID of the hose is larger - I'm getting a racking cane.

First brew day jitters got to me. I now remember reading about using Section N but totally forgot. On reviewing it however, I don't see how to calculate the addition of water to bring the wort back to the targeted gravity. Is it estimated VAW in K, vs Chilled VAW in L?

I hope experience is a swift teacher. I'll definitely study the Biabicus more thoroughly before and during my next brew.

Too much headroom in the fermentor? Perhaps I should find a smaller one for this batch. I'll let it ferment for a few days as I have to leave town. I'll transfer it when I get back.

I won't tell another sole about the last tip

Thank you as always for your help

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Good stuff Streamer .

I'm doing a fair few brews lately just trying to streamline processes so they are practical, easy etc, etc. The racking is the only thing that is still annoying me but getting very close to a solution now - had a brain-wave during brewing today that doesn't even involve a cane but need to think more on one aspect of it. For now, go the cane but make sure the hose has the same diameter ID or not too much larger. (This, of course, can make it hard to connect the two or find the right size hose if trying to use silicone hose.)

Don't worry about your fermenter size but, if poss, try and find a smaller secondary and do the blow-off trick.

Section L

Section L can be a bit tricky. Firstly, you must have the KFL and VIF fields completed in Section L. This is a "safety" feature as you shouldn't be attempting dilutions unless you are very sure of your volumes and GAW. So, that's the first bit.

The second bit, is that this is one area of the BIABacus you need to play "a game of twenty questions" with. (Other brewing software, you get to play the game heaps!) What I mean by this is...

In Section L, you "guess" a number to type in beside 'Extra Water Added to Fermenter' and then, in the Section underneath, Section O, you look at what the 'Expected Original Gravity (OG)' field reads. Keep changing the dilution amount until Section O equals your desired OG.

We could add a dilution calculator in, but the BIABacus file size is getting larger and larger already .

Cheers ,
PP

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Re:

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Streamer wrote:Getting set to brew a 5 gallon batch, and I want to fully understand how to use Biabicus to adjust for a high GAW. This is how I currently understand the process: After boil, measure VAW and GAW. Transfer to fermenter, measure VIF. Go to section L, input KFL and VIF. Go to section M, input actual GAW. Then in section N, mess around with Extra Water added to Fermenter until Expected Original Gravity hits my mark.

Yep, that's it .

Streamer wrote:I'm getting the math now. If I don't have the Biabicus, I can take the difference between my expected OG and actual OG as a percentage of my actual OG, multiply that by my VIF, and the result will be how much clean water I need to add to bring the actual OG down to the targeted OG. Yea! (I think)

Easiest to use the process above. Your idea is close but not quite correct. The maths is as follows. Let's say you scored 20 Litres into the fermenter with a gravity of 1.055 but you wanted 1.050, the maths is as follows...

20*55=1100 'metric' gravity points.
1100/50=22
22-20=2 (Dilute by 2 litres)

You can change the above to gallons if you like, the same principle applies.

Streamer wrote:Last question for now, since I ended up with a higher OG than anticipated, will the beer end up sweeter or with higher alcohol? I'll go out on a limb, as this is a learning experience, and guess higher alcohol. My reasoning is that the wort with a higher OG has more sugars, and the yeast will convert this into alcohol. This may also create some off flavors, such as bitterness. Or am I totally off?

Let's use the 1.055 versus 1.050 example above. If you didn't dilute with the 2 litres, yep, your beer would end up with a higher ABV%. But. if you did add the 2 L dilution, your beer will end up as planned assuming the estimated final gravity is also attained.

Advanced Stuff: Level of bitterness is 'probably' affected in real life but we don't really have enough data/research to be sure on this. Section O of the BIABacus shows you the actual 'theoretical' IBU's and B/G Ratio. This is based on your actual VAW, GAW and any fields completed in Section N. You can, also consider this when deciding on dilutions but it is a judgement call.


PP

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Hey Streamer,

Let me take a stab at the hop question... I don't think under-shooting the OG would have any negative effect on hops. If anything, a lower OG might intensify the hops that are in the beer (balance would be heavier toward the hops than malt). So, I would look at the hops...

1) Are you sure there were no mistakes with hop measurements (etc.)? That would be an easy one...

2) Assuming you "measured twice and cut once", what was the age of your hop pellets (or were they flower?), condition, etc. where did you get them and who was the producer, which harvest year, etc.? Your BIABacus indicated you were using pellets.

I had some hops that I brewed a couple batches of last year and found them to be way less hoppy. Need to use some math to calculate present AA from what the hops were before. Using my calculator the 7.9% AA at harvest hops calculated down around 5.3% when brewed with them again in May. Caught it this time, however. To help you investigate this would need more info on the hops. Amarillo is supposed to be "Moderate" (in the middle) of ability to maintain alpha acids over time - better than many but not as good as some others.

Anyhow, this could "potentially" be a culprit (maybe "the" culprit) on a good recipe, that would lower the actual experienced bitterness and hop flavor. (And it could be something else ). Let me know if you need any assistance with that. Been heavily researching this topic the past several weeks...and plan to post something. Just not quite revised enough yet to post current version here.

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