4% shrinkage from boiling to room temp *shrugs*

Loss to trub could be the other explanation. And I have to admit, I haven't read this from start to finish. So I apologise if I sound barking mad.

quick edit; even with the lid on the volume will still shrink as it cools by 4%; Thermal dynamics

I can't see anywhere about what volumes you are brewing so I'll just show how it works for me

When I do a batch I am aiming for 27 litres post boil. 27 x 96% = 25.92 litres after cooling. If you add to that 1.75 litres of trub that I leave behind in the kettle, 25.92 - 1.75 = 24.17 litres into fermenter. After losing a further litre or so for the yeast cake, I have a final volume of 23 litres, or thereabouts, of finished beer.

I hope this doesn't just confuse things more

Good Day,
Hashie has it, I found the same data from my MINI-BIAB.

But I did not need a Program to get this data.

Just a few batches!

Bek,

Great question as always and hashie and joshua have the right answer .

Current brewing terminology is very hit and miss. The term, 'batch size,' can mean anything unfortunately. Unambiguous terminology is one of the major things that has been worked on for the new calculator/site layoout. Having clear terminology makes everything so much easier. You'd think creating such terminology would be an easy problem to solve but it's not. The first problem, which you are experiencing right now, is actually realising that there is something very wrong with the existing terminology.

Who would think that is even possible?

You are questioning the terminology already. Nice. That's a major thing. In hindsight, for me, at least, realising how bad existing terminology is was the biggest step forward I have ever taken in brewing. It frees you up to question other things whilst at the same time relaxing.

Mind you, to say, "Brewing terminology is all wrong," is not a comfortable thing to say publicly. But privately, ask even the professional brewer, what terms like 'batch size' and 'brewhouse efficiency,' mean and you will get different answers or, occasionally, one will say, it is stupid terminology. But, atm, you don't make many friends saying stuff like that .

But, (and I know you like this sort of talk Bek and I like writing it ) in life, there are dragons. (In this instance, Brewing Terminology.)

The 'Innocent' doesn't even realise there are dragons. (Many brewers would think batch size means one thing or the other, not both.)
The 'Orphan' realises there are dragons in the world but has no idea what to do about it.
The 'Wanderer' realises there is a dragon and runs away from it.
The 'Martyr' knows there is a dragon, surrenders to it and serves it.
The 'Warrior' knows there is a dragon and will kill it. (They will tell everyone that Batch size is this size. Same as Martyr essentially.)
The 'Magician' however, 'names,' and then, 'transforms,' the dragon.

and the Magician, him or herself, transforms into the 'Innocent/Magician'.

The above is not a path. There is no order in the above. Some people in a particular process whether it be licking stamps or dealing in rocket science will follow different pathways. (For example, I have in my mind, several brewers on this site who are natural Magicians who know nothing of numbers. And there are other brewers who are Magicians in other areas and orphans in others. It's a complex blend.)

Anyway Bek, you have 'seen' the current dragon of brewing terminology. Instead of doing nothing, you're asking questions. You're also not running away from the problem. You're not saying it's all too hard. You're not making it fit with your existing thinking. So, once again, you've just shown plain good thinking.

Not sure how to tie all the above together. Basically, the Magician walks up to the dragon and says, "You breathe fire don't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, how about you come and light our fires in the village tomorrow morning?"

That's probably the crappiest analogy I have ever come up with but rest-assured, a lot of work has been done behind the scenes here to make brewing terminology our friend rather than the dragon. (We even have a Brewing Terminology Chart which a few guys here spent ages thinking on and one of the latest betas has improved on yet again, just today! Not sure whether to thank him or kill him!!! He will laugh at that )

The real point of the original story is that a 'pure' Magician can find the gold in garbage.Knowing which brewing terms are gold is not easy atm.

Not too sure if you caught me at a good moment or a bad one Bek. This one above was a bit like the Zen one I wrote a while back - lol. I hope though that there is some fun or interesting stuff above .
PP

stoutgirl5 wrote:if the beer tastes good does it matter if nothing makes sense?

Pure Zen Bek. You are there!

Hi there Paudle,

I've taken a few guesses at your pot diameter (which affects evaporation rate)and put your recipe into The Calculator. (Sorry, it's all in metric atm).

Just focus on the first sheet for now and once you get closer to doing a brew we can firm things up a bit more. Basically, if you look at cell B21, you'll see that the approximate mash volume is 24.45 litres. If you add another 20% to this to allow yourself some room to breathe, you'd want your kettle size to be about 30 L.

You can play around with cell B5 (how much beer you want to end up with into bottles) and everything else will adjust automatically. These numbers allow for lots of wastage so often you'll end up with more beer than expected.

Let us know if you have any questions.


PP

Hi there Paudle,

I'd mash this at 149-150 F. The 90 minute boil is not a necessity though in certain situations (crappy grain for example) it can prevent things like haze. A 90 minute boil gives you a bit of time to get things ready or take a break. I tend to do 90 minute boils and put my bittering hops in at 75 minutes. This gives the boil 15 minutes to settle down.

As for the checklist, I haven't had a look at it for ages and am a bit short on time today. Maybe have a read of The Commentary and then see if you can fill the checklist out. I can check it over for you once done if that is any help.


PP

Nice work Paudle and sorry for the slow reply.

On The Calculator, on the Hop Bill sheet, change E8 back to 23.94 as that is the end of boil volume of the original recipe. Everything else looks fine. However, with the calculator,once you have put the original recipe amounts in, all you have to do is change the Brewlength and Kettle Diameter on the 'Volumes etc' sheet to scale your recipe. So, the file I attached above already has the Brewlenght changed so all you need to do is change Kettle Diameter. Hope that makes sense?

The mash temperature I came up with is based on a few IPA recipes from Brewing Classic Styles. That temperature suits a lot of beer styles. It's pretty much middle of the range. Recipes should come with a mash temp supplied but many don't unfortunately.

A 90 minute mash is, once again, a safer option than a 60 minute mash. Things like efficiency continue to rise, albeit slightly, between 60 and 90 minutes. Once again, not a critical thing just safer.

I'd ferment that beer at about 18 C (64.4 F). Ideally you should chill to this temperature before pitching. Put your pot into a cool water bath and change the water a few times. Save your ice for towards the end of your chill otherwise it will just go to waste. If your tap water is say 15 C, you won't even need an ice bath .

Keep your temperature at around the 18 C mark during fermentation. You could add your dry hops in when the krausen subsides, which at that temp would happen at round about 4 days. Just add the dry hops in on day 5. No biggie.

I'd forgotten there was so much detail in The Checklist but I do remember it being a handy tool when I was starting out - it stopped me forgetting stuff. After a while you will need it less and less. Many new brewers use no checklist and don't seem to run into too much trouble so just use it for as long as you wish. Eventually things become second nature.

Looks like you have done a great job at filling it out. All you need to do now is go back to the original calculator file I posted above and put in your pot diameter and then use the hop figures that appear in columns I on the hop bill sheet. Put these into the checklist. Only other thing I noticed was that on The Checklist, you should change cell F6 to 78.5 and G60 to 67.3. (These numbers come from the 'Efficiency Checklist' sheet of The Calculator.)

Hope there's not too much in the above to take in in one hit. You've done really well.


PP

Hi there tjash,

I've put your recipe into The Calculator and added a few columns on the grain and hop bill sheets for US figures. The only real unknown is the hop bill as I'm unsure of the end of boil volume of the original recipe. If you can find this out, just change cell E8 on the Hop Bill sheet.

So, if you want to end up with 5 gallons of beer at say 1.048 OG, you'll need about 9.8 lbs of grain, very close to what you were planning - good on you!

I wouldn't worry about moving your hops to 40 minutes. Have a read of the first four posts of this thread for some reasoning on this.

I actually don't brew wheat beers so my advice on the actual recipe won't be worth listening to . Maybe someone else can help you out with that side of things. Let me know if yo have any questions on the numbers though.


PP

Good on you Paudle ,

On the IBU's, you can't really rely on those unfortunately. Have a read of post #572 here. Hopefully that will explain the IBU problem. Let me know though if you need further clarification.

Oh and yep, I did mean G80 sorry. Also G65.

On the grain weight thing, there are no losses in crushing so say if you put 2kgs into the mill, that is what will come out. Everything else in brewing involves losses though .


PP

Ah, no wonder you're confused - I buggered that up!!! I scrolled up the page and used the end of boil volume for Tjash's recipe not yours .

Have you got a link to (or the name) of the original Mr Beer recipe? That way, I might be able to take a better guess at what IBU formula and volume figures they are using and see if we can get a bit more accuracy. Not sure how I missed asking that on the first run. Must have been just concentrating on the volumes sheet. (Sober too )

Yeah, sorry about that Paudle. You are not crazy, just me . I'm so used to the recipes here being scaled ones I got mixed up .

When you are designing a recipe instead of scaling one, you have two options available to you in The Calculator. One is an advanced method so let's forget that for now and concentrate on finding out the approximate IBU's you can expect from your recipe design.

Change E8 on your hop bill sheet to 14.31 L as this is your predicted end of boil volume and this is the critical volume in recipe design. See how the 14.31 matches cell L8 on the same sheet? That's what you want. (If you just used 11.6 L, it wouldn't account for your kettle and fermentor losses and your IBU's estimate would be too high.)

Now that I am concentrating in the right direction, I see you are doing a SMASH recipe. This is a great choice and something I have never done*. All the brewers I know who are great at recipe design I'm pretty sure have gone that route so good on you!


PP

* The only thing I am good at is knowing what questions to ask these brewers when they come up with a great recipe so that I can scale/duplicate them well .