bradfordlad wrote:Cheers mate

Dave,
Deeeeep breath. Exhale. All good, your calculator & recipe looks spot on. Ok, it looks like you have taken the Hops AA from the original recipe and copied it to the scaled recipe values (Hop Bill tab, cell L13 downwards) . Remember, the AA units in this column should be from your packets of hops.

Notes/info on the maxi BIAB

• Once you have completed the Brew Length, End of Boil Gravity and diameter of kettle fields on the Volumes Etc tab you do not really have to bother with the info on there. Nothing wrong with it but you won't need it. That being said, the Approximate Mash Volume field that you see basically means that if you want to brew this beer,(same Brew lenght, OG AND kettle diameter) then you need a kettle that can take 43L or more.

• Ok, the Mash volume that have got you vexed (the one on the Maxi-BIAB tab). That tells you what your mash volume is going to be based on the settings in the "Equipment" tab. Open that tab and change cell B26 to 0. Note what happens to the value in the cell B27? also, go back to the "Maxi-BIAB" tab and look again at the value in B55... So, if you fill your kettle with your strike water, volume as per cell B54 ("Maxi-BIAB" tab) and you add your grain, you should have around 3cm of head space left (as you have specified) and that equates to a mash volume of 30.6L

Final bit of advice on the Maxi-BIAB calculator:
Open the "Actuals" tab of the calculator on your brewday and follow it top to bottom. REMEMBER to complete the red fields before you look at/consider any of the following steps. Each red field does impact the numbers further down in the page. Once you get your head around the info on the Actuals tab it becomes your best friend during maxi-BIAB brewing. Oh - don't be too fussed regarding the altered hops weights on the Actuals tab, especially not during your first couple of brews. Just use the quantity of hops as per the Hop Bill tab.

Shout if you need more info on the maxi calculator. Most of all, enjoy. You will make beer and bar a serious infection it will be a great beer!

bradfordlad wrote: So on the volumes tab the Approximate Mash Volume figure of 42.97 only applies if i were to do a normal (non maxi) BIAB?

Yes.

bradfordlad wrote:I just follow the figures and instructions on the Maxi-BIAB and Actuals tabs to brew using my equipment?

Yes.

Hi there mv and welcome aboard ,

Saw your thread yesterday and found some errors in the original post. No wonder you had problems - I did as well . Good on you for having a crack .

The guys have fixed the original thread now and added a file to it. I think it is now looking fine. Here it is...So, now you only have to change two things (as you already worked out )...

1. Kettle Diameter to 28cm
2. Then. changing the Brew Length a few times shows that if we set it to 6.39 L we get a Start of Boil Volume of 12.0 L which is your limiting factor.

So, nothing more now needs to be changed - it's scaled.You'll see that you'll need a total of 1878 (1444+289+146) grams of grain and 23.5 (6.3+8.1+9.1) grams of hops.

Some other Notes

See the Grain Bill sheet? Only ever fill out the Percent column or the Weight column on the left. Don't do both.

Similarly, on the Hop Bill sheet, only fill out the Grams or the IBU columns on the left. Don't do both.

Also on the Hop Bill sheet, 1.058 has been written in for both Pre-Boil and Original Gravity. Doing it this way means the predicted IBU's stay true to the original Tinseth hop formula.

You poor bugger maevan. Sorry you hit upon that thread to start with. I hope the above will have lessened your confusion a bit but fully understand if you are still scratching your head.

Let us know what does or doesn't make sense now.

PP

I've been using one of Stux's maxi-biab calculators lately because there is a bit more info, and I'm wondering if there's a way to switch between Rager and Tinseth IBU calculations. As far as spread sheets go, I really only have the chops to enter data into cells, but I noticed on the "Notes" panel there are cells for Rager, Tinseth, and Garetz.

Can I adjust a code in a cell somewhere to change the formula?

Hi there LG,

I reckon shoot stux a PM re this. I'm guessing that the Rager and Garetz calcs may have been something that was planned at one stage but due to various factors may have been forgotten or deliberately left out. We went through several months of finding the reasons why there were so many discrepancies in just the Tinseth IBU estimates given in existing software. By the time that was solved, I think we were all a bit more informed on how crazy the whole IBU estimate area is.

In other words, more is less .

Rager and Garetz are being deliberately left out of the BIABacus although we could put them in. Why?

The reason is because it is all a bit of a furphy. (Not sure if that word is well known? It means a 'red herring.') Basically, Tinseth is currently the best but by no means, a miracle formula, for estimating IBU's in an all-grain beer. Rager and Garetz should not be used for an all-grain beer.

I still can't work out an easy way of explaining this but if you give me say an extract recipe that had an IBU of 20 in Garetz or Rager, if I am going to all-grain it, then it is no use me changing my software or spreadsheet to Garetz or Rager, I need to work on Tinseth.

See how bad I am at explaining this?

The important thing in a recipe's hop bill (or anything) are the raw figures. That's what I really need. In a hop bill, this means weight, alpha acid % and time added. Rager, Garetz and Tinseth all rely on this raw data but multiply them differently.

The formulas also rely on end of boil volumes and gravity to an extent - more raw data!

Bearing in mind that it is almost impossible to find a recipe report that clearly states, "end of boil volume at ambient temperature was...", we are basically stuffed right from the start as we don't even have the most important number to work from .

Rager, Garetz and Tinseth are at the end of the line of the calculations of those raw figures. With existing brewing software, unless you are very studied in this area, if you scale a recipe, there is a very good chance that you will stuff it up immediately. Now, pass the recipe to me and then another brewer and then another one after that. You end up with a recipe that has no integrity.

Because of this, the majority, not some but nearly all of the recipes re-posted on the internet, lack their original integrity. Put that recipe into most brewing software, scale it and the integrity gets compromised yet again. (You can prove this to yourself in most brewing software.)

If a recipe report can't tell you, easily, what the end of boil volume at ambient was, then there is no reason why you should expect another brewer to easily know what it was.

Terminology is critical. Until brewing software gets it right, you might be drinking moonshine without even knowing it ,
PP

haha, thanks pistol! i really have no idea about the formulas, but try to use whatever the recipe's source used just to double check my figures.

i'm brewing a Rogue Shakespeare stout clone, and from their website it's 15 Plato OG and 69 IBU. i'm doing a 5.5 gallon batch size with 5 gallons going into keg. 90 m boil. probably around 6.25 gallons end of boil volume.

here's what stux's calculator gives me for the recipe:

3920 g US 2 row
645 g chocolate 350
645 g crystal 120
555 g oats
90 g roast barley 450
_______________________

71.5 g cascade 6.2%AA @ 60 min
23.5 g cascade 6.2%AA @ 0 min

+++++++++++++++

the calculator is telling me this is 45.47 IBUs – a ways off from 69, but perhaps it's just a matter of using a different formula?

lg

When you say 'the calculator' in your last line above do you mean stux's one or the main website one? Usually they are pretty much the same .

Now, I have some jobs for you ..

Can you post the files preferably both in stux's calculator and the main calculator. You've given some numbers above but as soon as I see the term batch, my brain closes down. (In this case however I do actually know what you mean by batch ).

You obviously have plugged your numbers into a spreadsheet. Post it!

Make sure you also put it into the main 'The Calculator' and post that file as well because that is what I would have to do. There are so many variations of stux's calculator floating here I have lost track of which version does what and what version has errors in it.

Finally, can you post the link to the original recipe - the Rogue Shakespeare Stout clone. Raw data is always best. Didn't you read my last post over and over?


PP

you're right! i did put the numbers in but on my home computer and now i'm at work :(

i'll run them through the main calculator as well and see what it spits out by comparison.

here's the link to the recipe page, which is also very confusing.

i used these percentages and set the OG for 1.061.

67
11
11
9.5
1.5

Thanks for the PM giving me a reprieve on this one LG . Couldn't have come at a better time as Excel and Libre Office have disappeared from my computer since upgrading to Windows 8 .

Besides that, as you mentioned, the thread you linked is very confusing. I'd need lots of beer or coffee to get through that one .

Because nearly all recipe reports on the net are ambiguous, a great place to start when trying to clone a beer is to firstly see if you can identify its style. Once you have done that, use the "Brewing Classic Styles," book as a base. The raw numbers there give you a foundation. After that you can browse the internet and look at the ambiguous recipes out there and often gain a feel for what things you should change in the base recipe.

At some point, you have to decide to just brew the beer with the info you have as you will never have enough perfect info when you want to clone a recipe. (In this thread we over-think things a lot but the purpose is to make sure that no one is going to brew something totally wrong.)

Once you have brewed the beer, then you can say, "I think it needed more of this or that. How do you think I should achieve that?" These questions are rarely asked on forums and when they are, the answers are simplistic or wrong because many questions are impossible to answer properly unless the forum knows what your equipment is and how you used it.

Writing all that critical info out about how you brewed your beer is laborious. You shouldn't have to do it but unfortunately no existing software considers this. The BIABacus has focused on many areas like this and I think will provide a massive breakthrough in easy communications between brewers once it is worked out how and where to to place it on the site and what supporting structure is needed.

LG, from your PM, I reckon go ahead and brew ,
PP

Great job on The Calculator scon ,

You've done everything really well. Only corrections I've made were on the Hop Bill sheet as follows...

1. Changed cell B10 to 43 grams to match original recipe.

2. Changed Cell G10 to 0.1 so as you don't get the #Div/0! error.

2. Changed cless J8, J9 and J10 to 8.8, 6 and 6. (When you know the AA% of the hops you are purchasing from the shop, you can change those cells to that.)

Just one other thing I have done is reduced the boil back to 90 mins as 120 mins is a bit long. There is no problem with throwing your hops in at the boil start although it does increase the chance of a boil-over. If you want to leave it until say 10 minutes after the boil starts, let me know and I'll post an adjusted file for you.

On the mashing side, go for 90 minutes at 68C and then the 77C mash-out if you can. It will make a difference to your efficiency.

On the yeast side, the dry American ale yeast (US-05) is excellent, just as good as the liquid and a lot cheaper so no need to worry about mucking around with a starter etc.


PP One other thing (advanced stuff so don't worry too much about it )...

Like nearly all recipes on the net, it is very hard to determine the end of boil volume and it's an important number. On the Hop Sheet in cell E5, you have put 19L. Without knowing their end of boil volume as well as their efficiency into kettle, software and bitterness formula they are using, you have to guess this number to a large extent. The Sierra Nevada website says it has an IBU of 37 however on Tinseth, we are only seeing 34.2. The 43 grams at 0 mins will add some bitterness so I think leave the 19L exactly as it is. It's a great guess .

scon, if you want to change to a 23l batch just change your brew length in The Calculator and it will change all of your grains and hops for you.
I don't see any reason to reduce your hop additions because of no chill,but yes adding the 0 min into secondary (which few of us use anymore)or after active fermentation should give the desired aroma without any bittering.
There is an extended discussion ongoing here somewhere regardeing chilling methods and hop additions.I am sure PP will respond with a short note.

Scon, Yes, some have a few primaries, and leave the beer there until Bottling.

I have only 1 large fermnter and 6 secondaries. SO one week primary, then secondary until it is clear enough to bottle!

Yeah that's about it,depends on the recipe.Hydro readings will tell the tale.Most brewers have given up the secondary fermentation in favour of sanitation and aeration or lack of.

Lylo wrote:I am sure PP will respond with a short note.

(I'll get to the hop bit at the end ).

As Lylo said, your recipe is right to go for scaling. i.e. Change 19L to 23L in the BrewLength cell on the first sheet and everything in the rest of the whole spreadsheet will scale automatically so as you end up with 23 L in your bottles.

Try this. See how the grain and hop bill quantities on the right hand side of the Grain Bill and Hop Bill sheets change? So, yes, always use the scaled (right hand side) amounts when you brew. There is no need for you to do any multiplications or divisions .

See how well I put what Lylo said in ten times the words?

Things you might want to change later but not now.

The Calculator has a whole lot of default formulas in it so that you can do your first few brews without getting too far from the mark. Things you can over-ride are 'Evaporation Per Hour,' 'End of Boil Efficiency', 'Kettle Trub and Buffer,' and Fermenter Trub.'

Initially check your evaporation. While this will vary from brew to brew especially if brewing outside, it's one factor that will be affecting your original gravity. If you find a large discrepancy on your first brew from that predicted, double-check it on your next brew.

'End of Boil Efficiency' is the other factor that will affect your original gravity but I wouldn't play with this default until you get 3 or 4 brews that give you a higher or lower average. Bear in mind also that high gravity brews will be less efficient than low gravity brews. The BIABacus defaults will make this adjustment for you (thanks to some work that stux did on this) whereas The Calculator nor any other software currently does this. So, don't play with this unless you are really sure what you are doing and have say five brews of about the same gravity under your belt.

'Kettle Trub and Buffer,' and 'Fermenter Trub.' These are not relevant to original gravity and are therefore not critical numbers. The Calculator defaults here are generous so don't be surprised if you get less trub than estimated. The worst that can happen if you play with these defaults is that you will end up with too little beer at the right gravity.

Hop Formulas - Advanced stuff. Skip to 'Some Basics' below if you like.

The main things that most brewers don't realise about hop formulas (because no one talks about it) are the following...

1. Three estimation formulas are commonly used - Garetz, Rager and Tinseth. All will give you different IBU estimations on exactly the same recipe. The differences can be extremely high. For example, the "Aussie Ale" sample recipe in BeerSmith says you will get 11.8 IBU's (Garetz), 22.2 (Rager) and 28.0 (Tinseth) using exactly the same ingredients!!!!

2. Tinseth is the best to use in all-grain recipes but...

3. Lots of software uses an incorrect Tinseth formula - Unless you can find software that matches the IBU's in the version of The Calculator you used above, then there will be an error in the formula.

4. None of the three hop formulas treat 0 minute additions properly - All of the hop formulas say that any hops added at or after flame-out do not contribute any bitterness. They do. The problem is no one really knows how much. In fact a lot of things about hops are difficult, if not impossible to quantify.

Hop Formulas - Some Basics.

Hop estimation formulas are very primitive tools.

1. Only rely on hop estimate formulas when you are designing a recipe. When you do, for all-grain, use the Tinseth formula.

2. When scaling/copying a recipe, see if you can find the end of boil volume of the recipe you are copying, the weight of hops used, their AA%, the time they were added, the chilling method used and at what time that chilling method was employed. This is the real raw info really needed but which unfortunately cannot be found in nearly every recipe on the net and even in books. Luckily for us, all-grain recipes are pretty forgiving so we don't have to get too worried about getting evrything exact.

...

Lylo should have mentioned all this above but he is very lazy ,
PP

P.S. There probably should be a whole new thread on your bottling question as there are so many possible variables in equipment, methods and ales vs lagers. It's a great question .

Lylo knows how much PP likes to show his keyboarding skills as well as his remarkable talent of streeetttccchhhiinngg things out.