Beer Alchemy—Batch or Fly Sparge

Post #1 made 14 years ago
I've been using Beer Alchemy for a little while and I'm trying to get a better understanding of the software and how it works so I can set it up to work better with my BIAB system and the way I brew. Unfortunately it only gives the choice to select "Batch Sparge" or "Fly Sparge". The best I can tell, it doesn't really effect anything other than how the directions are worded when you print off the instructions for a batch.

When choosing "Batch Sparge" it will say something like:
"Allow the temperature to stabilize at 153 degF. Allow to rest at this temperature for 60 minutes. Run off the hot wort and collect. Add a further 2.48 US gals of water at 153 degF and mix. Run off to collect a total of 6.00 US gals of wort."

When choosing "Fly Sparge" it will simply say:
"Allow the temperature to stabilize at 153 degF. Allow to rest at this temperature for 60 minutes. Sparge the grains and top up if necessary to obtain 6.00 US gals of wort (requires 2.48 US gals)."

Does anyone know more about this? Does my choice of sparge technique effect something else that I'm missing?

Post #2 made 14 years ago
I haven't used BeerAlcehmy for a while Mike but from memory, selecting fly or batch will only affect the instructions not the numbers.

What I do before using any other program is try and get the volume figures matching those given in 'The Calculator.' I don't have my apple laptop with me atm but I'm pretty sure that you can change the grain absorption figure in BeerAlchemy. This is the figure you need to change. The default, in metric, will be something like 1 whereas BIABrewer has collected the figures of several brewers and found the average to be 0.628 litres of water retained for every kilogram of grain.

If you can't find this number let me know and I'll dig out the Apple.

:peace:
PP
If you have found the above or anything else of value on BIABrewer.info, consider supporting us by getting some BIPs!
    • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Australia

Post #4 made 14 years ago
I won't be able to check it for a while sorry mike (another 12 hours or so). In the meantime, read this thread on BeerAlchemy.

I've been helping with the new calculator (the BIABacus) and it will have several featurees no other software has that really makes life easy so don't get too attached to your existing programs. (I think the guys are going to get it to work in Open Office/Libre Office which I think would mean it works on Mac though I'm not 100% sure on this.)

Later!
Last edited by PistolPatch on 23 Nov 2011, 06:19, edited 4 times in total.
If you have found the above or anything else of value on BIABrewer.info, consider supporting us by getting some BIPs!
    • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Australia

Post #5 made 14 years ago
This was one of the things that drove me mad about BA and I switched to BeerSmith 2

With BA I think It insists on knowing your mash thickness, which you just don't need to know as a BIABer
Fermenting: -
Cubed: -
Stirplate: -
On Tap: NS Summer Ale III (WY1272), Landlord III (WY1469), Fighter's 70/- II (WY1272), Roast Porter (WY1028), Cider, Soda
Next: Munich Helles III

5/7/12

Post #6 made 14 years ago
stux wrote:This was one of the things that drove me mad about BA and I switched to BeerSmith 2

With BA I think It insists on knowing your mash thickness, which you just don't need to know as a BIABer
I agree. I was thinking the only way around this would be to create a bunch of separate profiles for the most commonly used grain amounts. For instance I would save one as "BIAB 10lb." and another as "BIAB 9lb." etc. Then once I create my recipe, I would just have to total up the grain and pick the profile that is closest. Kind of a PITA but could work until they fix that.
Last edited by de5m0mike on 23 Nov 2011, 07:39, edited 4 times in total.

Post #7 made 14 years ago
Well, I emailed KentSoft 7 months ago with some suggestions

I haven't tested the new version which just came out... but as far as I can see its only a maintenance release to fix a launch issue.
1) I would like a place to see my grain total weight, possibly as a subtotal field in the Fermentables table, and it would be nice in the editing form too. It also makes sense for the hop fields

2) I use BIAB, which means the Mashing section doesn't sync up nicely with the process. In BIAB you essentially know your weight of grain, and the volume of water you'll be adding to your mash, this is essentially an infusion mash I assume, but its easy to do step mashings etc... having to calculate water to grain ratios is not part of the process, essentially it would need to be the opposite

3) I also no-chill, which means the date brewed is not the same as the date fermented, but your software seems to handle the post-boil dilution nicely

4) I can only edit a single recipe at a time, and I can't refer to another recipe while editing a different recipe because of the sheet that is used in the mac app

5) It would be nice to display a picture of the estimated colour of the beer in the recipe chart as well as editing pane

6) I can't edit quanities types after subtracting from inventory... I know this is by design but what If I *really* wanted to update a batch? For example, I've now added Weyermann Pilsner as a grain and I wanted to go through the batches that I used that batch of grain and change the type of grain from German Pilsner to the actual grain used... but can't. How about an unlock/lock type button?

7) Other Ingredients, I wanted to add my Whirlfloc at 10 mins in the boil, but can only select In Boil, I don't see why all the fermentables/hops time options can't be used on the Other Ingredients too

8) Other Ingredients, I wanted to be able to specify some ingredients in teaspoons, and some as 1/2 tablets.... ie Yeast Nutrient and Whirlfloc tables. Of course I can say a teaspon is 5gms, which is okay, but actually I'm adding a teaspoon, and with the tablets... a whirlfloc tablet is I think 2.5g, so I could say 1.25g, but that then rounds to 1g... which is not what I want, what I really want is 1/2 a tablet :)

9) Ingredients. I accidentally erased all my custom ingredients after extensively customizing them by accidentally clicking "Revert To Defaults". You see, I then hit Esc to cancel, but that didn't work, so I clicked the unhilited button which is in the cancel buttons position with the word that means Cancel... oh dear... that'd be the revert button. Perhaps a secondary warning would be good, but I'd suggest making the cancel button triggerable by Esc, and in the correct position, and perhaps using a different word than Revert.. "Revert or Cancel" although I know that revert is used to mean "revert to the previous values" whereas cancel means no change, they are both very similar words and confusion is easy... easpecially when I didn't even know there was a button there for reverting and just misclicked an ingredient! Perhaps the revert ingredients button shouldn't even be in the ingredient editors window

10) %ge Extract, sometimes the %ge Extract is not given on malt analysis sheets, I think it'd make sense to accept the other terms and map between them same with Colour, afterall, the EBC/SRM etc suffix is in the text field

11) Yeast, I only seem to be able to specify yeast in Packs, what if I wanted to specify the size of a starter, for example a 1.5L starter?

12) Evaporation. I notice that the Mac version seems to have an evaporation calculator, whereas the iPhone version seems to be a dilution calculator. Dilution capabilities in the Mac version would be nice, and in the dilution calcualtor I would like to be able to specify the after gravity OR the after volume and get the alternate figure. This is useful when you want to know how much water to add to attain a given gravity

13) I don't know if you've used OmniFocus for iPhone, but it has a very neat feature whereby it syncs with your iDisk. This is neat as you don't need to run a sync session on the mac/iphone and it also works as a remote backup when you are in the field. Essentially OmniFocus for iPhone will periodically resync with the idisk, and the mac version will too, which means you're data stays backed up and synced across devices, automatically. I'm sure that you have most of the work done with your current sync method already. Omnifocus seems to write a folder to the Documents folder on the iDisk. Its very careful to create a temporary name and then do some sortof atomic name change to overwrite the existing canonical version. I imagine a good method would be to store chronological changes in a folder and then just apply them.
In the meantime, BeerSmith 2 works much better as a recipe design solution for Mac BIABers, its just a bit clunky.
Last edited by stux on 23 Nov 2011, 10:55, edited 4 times in total.
Fermenting: -
Cubed: -
Stirplate: -
On Tap: NS Summer Ale III (WY1272), Landlord III (WY1469), Fighter's 70/- II (WY1272), Roast Porter (WY1028), Cider, Soda
Next: Munich Helles III

5/7/12

Post #8 made 14 years ago
Those are good thoughts. I hope to see some of that in the next version. I've also had the same thoughts as you in 1, 2, 7, 8 and 11. Among other things. For instance the ability to export profiles. I use Beer Alchemy on to different computers, at work and at home, and it makes transferring recipes tricky. Also would be nice to have scaleable windows in the notes section of the batch window. I use that all the time but it's hard when you can only see one or two lines as you type. I'm sure I could think of other things if I tried but overall I really like the way it works. As a long time mac user (I've actually never owned any other type of computer) it's UI makes the most sense to me.

Post #9 made 14 years ago
PistolPatch wrote:I won't be able to check it for a while sorry mike (another 12 hours or so). In the meantime, read this thread on BeerAlchemy.

I've been helping with the new calculator (the BIABacus) and it will have several featurees no other software has that really makes life easy so don't get too attached to your existing programs. (I think the guys are going to get it to work in Open Office/Libre Office which I think would mean it works on Mac though I'm not 100% sure on this.)

Later!

PP, did you ever get a chance to look into this? I'm not able to figure it out and I'm thinking BeerAlchemy can't do it. Maybe you were thinking of a different program.
Last edited by de5m0mike on 29 Nov 2011, 01:52, edited 4 times in total.

Post #10 made 14 years ago
Sorry Mike, when I saw stux's post above I remembered that you can't adjust it. I should have posted that sorry. Just double-checked on the latest version and it looks like it is still no go. :smoke:
If you have found the above or anything else of value on BIABrewer.info, consider supporting us by getting some BIPs!
    • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Australia
Post Reply

Return to “Measurement, Mathematics and Records”

Brewers Online

Brewers browsing this forum: No members and 24 guests