EXCELLENT Response as always PP and Thank you
The Army is "Making" me work today , but this evening I will go through this and get it re-posted.
V/r
Mike

PP-
Strangely enough, I do believe I understood most of what you are saying.
(By the way Thanks for the Hop resource link).
Holy Cow!. It is a good thing you had me put in the AA %. It showed that I needed to buy a bit more from NB to make up my Hop Bill.
I apologize for the section Y. I must have left that in when I stole the spread sheet off of another Recipe.
It is a good lesson for me to start with a clean BAIBacus from now on.
I hope I hit all of the points you brought up. We will see.
V/r
Mike
P.S. I added the file from NB for Brickwarmer, which I should have done in the first place .
Just for reference, I am attempting to do a double batch of this recipe.
Thank you

Jim

GW has some great recipes and from previous research ( look for threads with Graham Wheeler ) his volume figures are EOBV and I assume ( as GW doesn't seem to get into tech details to much) that this will be hot wort not ambient. So when I convert one of his recipes I set my VIF in section "B" so that my EOBV in section "K" is about 23L. I then override the Auto efficiency in section "X" to read 75% as this is GW's efficiency figure. If you then compare the grain bills you will notice that they nearly match. I say nearly because the Biabacus will give a lower total grain bill because of the difference in potential extract used in the recipe calculations. GW uses 300/Kg/L where as the Biabacus uses 307/Kg/L.
I then enter the hop bill using GW's AA% given in his book, and my hop bill using the AA% supplied with the hops. ( yours doesn't look right and you may have entered your hop AA% in the wrong section)

Things should look pretty good by this stage with GW's hop bill on the Biabacus matching his recipe and your new hop bill calculated by the Biabacus.

The final thing is to now delete the Auto efficiency override and scale the recipe in section "B" to how much ale you want.

Probably too late in the day if your brewing today but it may help you next time.



Yeasty

Hi Jim

Addled Jim wrote:I changed setting to 75% in section x but this increased grain bill not decreased as you advised?

Bit of confusion here. The grain bill will go up because the Biabacus Auto efficiency will be around 83%. Reducing this to 75% will cause grain bill to rise. I was saying to compare GW's grain bill with the Biabacus grain bill which should be lower because of calculation differences.

Addled Jim wrote:As for the hops the AA figs are correct,

So these are GW's numbers from the book?

Addled Jim wrote:Finally can you explain the Rolled Oats question - should that be an adjustment somewhere - surely they don't contribute as much sugar conversion as a malt?

Rolled oats will contribute a bit less than the regular malt but nothing worth worrying about at only 300g. Google Rolled oats extract potential and the net should throw up some figures.

Looking at your file I can see that you still have the VIK set at 23L if you change this to 19L you will see the EOBV change to 23.06. Setting the Biabacus up like this when converting a recipe allows you to see if there any glaring problems as the figures should match to within a reasonable degree. (Formula differences aside).

Yeasty

Addled Jim wrote:Did you mean VIK or VIF?-

Sorry Jim VIF..I was trying to answer your last post whilst making a curry

Addled Jim wrote:I do want 23ltr 5 UK Gal too, this is what I normally make- or have I got confused again?

Same as me. Just adjust VIF once you are happy the recipe looks right to your desired amount.

Addled Jim wrote:His books have the hops listed as weights not AA as these figs would vary - there is only the overall IBU fig they achieve?

I have BYORA and there is a section on hops with a table showing hop type and Alpha Acid. Have a look to see if your book has the same. I would imagine he would keep the same format.

Yeasty

You might be on to something with the hop section. I've always used recipes with the original AA% available and have always entered them in section "D" in the original hop bill design. I then enter my hop details under the Substitutions section. I'll have to dig out an old recipe and have a play. Perhaps the Biabacus crew could explain this better.

Addled Jim wrote:What advantage would a table in the book give, surely it doesn't allow for variations in AA between different crops/years of a particular hop?

GW lists his hops and AA% in a table in his BYORA book which relates to the amounts in his recipes to give the required IBU. He could have easily have given the AA% in the actual recipe but chose to list them in the hop section. Most recipes list the hop bill in Variety/Amount/AA% format.



Yeasty

Addled Jim wrote:Cool, pretty sorted now then
So can I not just dial in the hops AA from that listed on the packets - I thought the BIABacus looked at the percentage split of the hop bill then scaled against the AA manually input to achieve the target IBU?
What advantage would a table in the book give, surely it doesn't allow for variations in AA between different crops/years of a particular hop?
AJ

Great to see that Yeasty has been looking after you AJ. Posts like his take a lot of time. He'll be asleep now so I'll try and tidy up some loose ends here.

You, like everyone, steps into very murky waters when you choose to copy a recipe that is not already in a BIABacus format. I've just written an essay on this here and I think you should have a read of that at least once and then bookmark it.

If you had been able to find a recipe in BIABacus form, the only sections of the BIABacus you would need to look at are B,C, D, and K. Easy peasy!

Instead though, Yeasty and yourself have had to spend a lot of time using advanced sections of the BIABacus to interpret and understand a single external recipe just because it is not written as well/clearly as it should be (read links above). Your last worry is...

Addled Jim wrote:So can I not just dial in the hops AA from that listed on the packets - I thought the BIABacus looked at the percentage split of the hop bill then scaled against the AA manually input to achieve the target IBU?

And the answer is, "No."

If you read the essay I linked above and it's sub-links, you will see why I say, "No!". (You pretty much only use the second line of section D of the BIABacus if you are designing a recipe from scratch.)

Briefly though, there are at least five types of IBU's - laboratory (actual), perceived (actual), Garetz, Rager and Tinseth (all estimates). In all-grain you don't want to be working off an IBU figure unless you know it is laboratory, perceived or Tinseth.This is rarely available. (If it is, then sure, use the second line of section D.)

For reasons explained in the essay above, to duplicate a recipe properly, on the hop side, you really need the VAW, the hop weights, the hop times, the chilling method, the hop AA's of the original hops used in the recipe as well as the AA% of the hops you will be using.

Not sure if you have ever noticed but garlic at some months of the year is totally non-garlicky while at others it is extremely pungent. The same goes with hops with the only difference being it is not from month to month but from year to year. Some months/years we need to use more/less. We need though to know two things...

How pungent were the hops (garlic) in the original recipe?
How pungent are the hops (garlic) now?

Make sense?
PP

Here's an interesting post for you balli...

I went to check your recipe but as soon as I saw the word, "Bitter," above, I knew I would have problems. Anyway, I have, "Brewing Classic Styles," here and so I looked up bitter in the back of the book. Here is what I found...

bitter. See extra special/strong bitter, special/best/premium bitter, standard/ordinary bitter.

Let's see what I found...

Extra Special: page 121-122
Special: page 119-120
Strong: page 121-122
Best:
Premium:
Standard:page 115-118
Ordinary: See standard

It took about 15 minutes (maybe more) to even narrow things down that much! As I examine more, I see that extra special is also a strong bitter etc, etc, etc,

I'm not an English beer drinker but I think that the above tells me that more info is needed. Even if I had the skills, I would want to know exactly which sort of English BItter you want to brew. Give as much detail as you can. If you have Brewing Classic Styles, as you do, give the page number of the recipe, its title and its full style name .

Let's go from there ,
PP

How interesting that my Recipe, (or the one I copied rather), and that of AJ's, ended up falling into line with regards to Hop bill issues.
After reading more about Hops, it is starting to make some sense.
I think from now on, I will just go ahead and stick with the Recipes that are posted on this web site.
I certainly noticed the Hop bill bumped up significantly once PP had me add the VAW into the equation.
After reading PP’s post, I believe I have a better understanding as to why the HOP bill went up pretty significantly.
I believe I am blessed in the fact that I never used any other software besides BIABacus.
I am able to see things change as I make adjustments, giving me a very healthy understanding of why those changes are occurring.
(That and I have read about 1500 posts or so these last three weeks )
If someone could take a quick look at the adjustments I made in post #1652, to see if I did it right, that would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
V/r
Mike

Okie, I'll do balli here and you next ,

balli, we are now on the same page - excellent! Thanks for that extra info .

Firstly, some notes on the file...

If you have access to grain weights (as you do in BCS recipes) type the weights into the left hand side of Section C. Then type 22.7 L on the first line of Section D. This gives you more info (eg colour).

On the second line of Section D, you have written 35.0 whereas the original recipe is 32.0. If you have done this consciously, then fine .

From memory (though I could be wrong) Goldings has a few characteristics of American hops. So, that substitution may lose some 'lightness/freshness' from the beer. Not sure. Look up "Beer Legends". They have some great info on hops.

Just brew the beer as close to the book as you can. Nice pdf chart but stick with the book for now.

If the things I mentioned above check out, I think you are good to go ,
PP

balli, your answer is above. This one os for Okie.

Some very good insights in your post above Mike. Pleased to read that. Just sorry that the site isn't laid out as yet so you don't need to read 1500 posts .

Your file in #1652 is great except there is one major error sorry!!!! (You need to fix it.)

There was no need to double the ingredients on the left hand side of sections C and D. In fact, doing so, caused you some disadvantages. For example, if you added in the colour of the grains, you would get a wrong answer. For the same reason, and here is the real problem....

In section D, you have typed in 20.83 L on the first line. That is great because that is the VAW of the orignal recipe. But, you have doubled the hop weights of the original recipe .

What this means is that the BIABacus now thinks that 1.5 ozs of bittering hops were used in the original recipe etc etc. But yu and I know that it was only 3/4 oz.

So, everything on the left hand side of your Sections C and D needs to be halved. (Well, at least in Section D). When you do this, your IBu's will drop from 70.8 to 35.4!!!)

As soon as you find yourself doubling or tripling stuff in the BIAbcsu, you are probably using it wrong. It does all that stuff for youo . Is that making sense Mike?


PP

P.S. Post another file. SOrry, I missed # 1652 until now.

It makes tons of sense and Thank you
After watching the numbers change on the right hand side, after putting in the CORRECT numbers on the left hand side, I figured out rather rapidly that I had a Hop schedule that even BobBrews would have gagged on.
Honestly PP, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the posts.
It took a bit to get used to the site, but I am there now and it is all good.
Currently, I am reading your and James and the other guys history on AHB. It is quite interesting what you all have gone through to get to where this has become today
OK sir, one more time on my double batch and I will leave you all alone until I actually get home and brew it
V/r
Mike

Okie and balli, stuck on time tonight but will try and get back here tomorrow.

On the VAW question, does point number 1 in this post help you out balli? (Btw, ignore the -15. I'll explain tomorrow).

Have fun reading okie . Will check your file tomorrow.

Thank you Brother PP.
It is always appreciated
Later: It was good for me to read the "Broken Water Pipe in the Wall" Post again.
I understand it a little better each time

Okie, sorry I didn't get back to your file question yesterday. Got side-tracked on some other threads and then had a visitor. Let's have a look at the file...

Looking perfect Mike .

Only comments I have is that you don't really need yeast nutrient in all-grain brews, only extract and your Whirfloc should be added at 5 mins, especially if no-chilling.

Good on you

balli, Did that post I liked help you with your VAW question or do you want some more info on it?

As for your color question, where the BIABacus is saying there is a colour discrepancy of -15, there's a few things to say...

Firstly, we really want to get rid of that 'Colour Discrepancy' field in the final BIABacus as it is quite misleading. Still haven't thought of what to replace that field with though.

While the colour equation we use is the best one around, it is still just a guestimate and it can be misleading. It probably needs to factor in kettle efficiency which it doesn't do. In other words, the colour equation currently says that a brewer with higher kettle efficiency, who therefore needs less grain in his brew, will get lower colour. This may or may not be right. I've certainly never seen any colour testing on different efficiency brews though.

Some commercial software will make the colours match in a scaled versus original recipe by manipulating the 'coloured' grains differently from the base grains. We currently think that is a wrong approach for two main reasons...

1. Firstly, coloured grains are also usually high flavour grains. Above I asked the question,"Does a more kettle efficiecnt brewer get more colour out of the same amount of grain?" The sane can be asked of flavour.

2. When you start treating one grain differently from another when scaling an origianl recipe, you immediately start to erode the integrity of the original recipe (except in the BIABacus where the original recipe can always be clearly seen on the left hand side of Section C). When using commercial software that makes the colour march between original and scaled, once you go through a few different scalings from person to person, the scaled recipe becomes not a great copy but more of a mutation. And the problem with those programs is that you can never find your way back to the original.

Let me know if this colour explanation makes any sense and also please let me know if you have VAW sorted.


PP

As Always-
It is appreciated Sir!!!!
V/r
Mike