[I don't have time atm to condense the below sorry. If anyone else does, please go for it!]
Charles, thanks for your efforts on HBT in explaining the BIABacus. That can be a hard thing to do because we've never really written anything up here on that as yet. Like so much stuff, there's a piece here and a piece there which is still being tied together behind the scenes. Let's have a crack at some of your questions though...
ANYONE, FEEL FREE TO COPY AND THEN ADD TO OR EDIT ANY OF THE FOLLOWING...
What the BIABacus Can't Do in Spreadsheet Form
In spreadsheet form, after many attempts at trying to get macros to work cross-platform, we have chosen to make the sheet totally macro-free. This means the the BIABacus can't do things like the following...
1. Automatically change units from metric to US or vice versa although both are displayed.
2. Separate information into different tabs. (In the spreadsheet form, all the major information is on one tab and this has actually been done purposefully.)
3. A recipe has to be transmitted as a whole spreadsheet file.
4. No tab order can be set so you usually have to click and type.
5. Drop-down lists for grains/hops etc
Gimmicks and/or Features Not in the BIABacus
1. Colour Scaling - In my view, this should not be in any brewing software. (Reasoning is #3
here.)
2. Colour Picture - This is another debatable feature as colour looks vastly different on any computer screen.
3. Hop Age Tool - Available in BeerSmith2. This looks fine to me as long as you know the AA% of the hops you are buying.
4. Water Adjustment Tools - Available in BeerSmith2 although I have not checked it over.
Most other tools I can think of are actually already and intuitively built into the BIABacus
What the BIABacus Can Do
(Also see below, What the BIABacus Does that Nothing Else Can Do.
Besides the above, pretty much anything other software can do, faster, safer and more accurately.
For a safety example, a recipe can be scaled in the BIABacus in a matter of seconds with no or as little loss of integrity to the original recipe as is possible. In another popular program, a recipe can be scaled accidentally in many way. Only one of these ways is correct (will not destroy the integrity of the original recipe) and that way is not intuitive.
An example of speed is when you copy a recipe and have a different AA% of hops than that of the original recipe. In real life, this happens on almost every recipe. The BIABacus, with it's left and right sides in Section D make the substitution adjustment immediate. In other programs, it will take a minute or two (a game of twenty questions) and a pen and paper to do the substitution correctly.
An example of accuracy is in the IBU estimate formulas. The BIABacus matches those of Glen Tinseth and work off the Volume and the Gravity of the Ambient Wort (see
Clear Brewing Terminology). A lot of brewing software, including the most popular, have errors in this formula.
Concepts Developed Here and Used by Some Software (Without Acknowledgement 
)
The following originated from myself or this site...
- BIAB Liquor Retained by Grain Ratios. (Beersmith has been the only program given permission to use the ratio.)
- Evaporation Rate Estimate based on kettle diameter.
- Depth and headspace measurements to determine volumes. (Depth developed by me. Headspace subsequently by stux.)
Limitations of Other Software/Sheets/Calculators
There is a proliferation of sheets that are written to only suit one scenario or are just incorrect in their concepts. For example, the author of
this calculator mentions
here mentions that the calculator is designed for people buying a kit (fixed amount of ingredients). So, for a start, this calculator only suits one scenario. It then asks the new user to be estimating many numbers they would have no idea on. [As for the comment in the post about "multiple heights", see above section
. Wow! Just noticed a link from the pricelss site that lead to an
HBT article originally written by me but no acknowledgement!!! It's a copy of my first BIAB guide written back in 2006 from memory.].
Other software is generally limited by their lack of transparency, help, 'safety', flexibility, speed, and/or accuracy.
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What the BIABacus Does that Nothing Else Can Do[/center]
Well, there's a lot. The BIABacus is a paradigm shift in many areas...
Speed of Learning: Even in spreadsheet form, the BIABacus is relatively fast to learn. It just requires looking at each section in order. A new user can actually scale/copy an existing recipe, in most cases, by simply changing a few fields in Section B.
Safety: The BIABacus has been carefully designed so that it is difficult to screw up. If you do screw up, a warning will be thrown at you in red. In the BIABacus main release you will be able to find info/help on that warning easily.
Intelligence / Auto Estimates: The BIABacus is intelligent software. It looks at your situation and auto-adjusts for your situation. A new brewer does not have to do anything complicated to get underway on their first few brews as the BIABacus auto-estimates, extremely well, the 'grey' areas for you. For example, the BIABacus does the reverse to all other brewing software - it intelligently auto-estimates what kettle efficiency you can expect on any recipe whilst other software asks you to tell it what kettle efficiency (or, even worse, fermentor efficiency) you should expect from all your recipes. It is simply impossible to get the same kettle efficiency on a low gravity recipe as a high gravity one.
Chilling & Hop Management Methods
The four simple lines of Section G in the BIABacus contain a wealth of information on how the chilling process has been conducted. No other software goes near the area of chilling methods and when they are employed. (Yes, one or two have 'no-chill' adjustments but these do not consider the wide array of 'passive chilling' scenarios and, in fact, are even more primitive than the existing IBU estimation formulas.) IBU estimation formulas are really not that important for flavour and aroma hops. Section G allows a whole new focus on flavour and aroma hop management.
Versatility: In fact, even though BIAB is intended to be 'full volume brewing (simultaneous mashing and sparging)', it also can handle three vessel brewing and anything in between. Section W 'Full Volume Variations' handles perfectly, many scenarios that no other brewing software attempts to approach.
Transparency/Education: The design and lay-out of the BIABAcus, even in spreadsheet form, is aimed at transparency and education. That is why we chose to put all critical information is on one tab. No other software can come anywhere close to this design. Change one thing on the first sheet of the BIABacus and you can see what it affects.
Terminology/Definitions/Clarity: Like the BIABacus design, several thousand hours of thought have been put into terminology and definitions and clarity. In my view,
Clear Brewing Terminology is essential to anything that should one taken seriously. If a brewing program is written that, for example has fields called "Batch Size" and brewers subsequently publish their recipes where batch size can mean anything from 'Volume into Packaging' right up to 'Volume at Flame-Out', who is to blame? The brewer or the author of the software? In my view, it is the latter and this leads to...
Excellent Help: The main release of the BIABacus will allow you to click on the ? of any section of the BIABacus to get help. That is unique for a start. You won't get such thorough, easy to access help in any other program. The forum lay-out to come is also aimed at being fast to find great info. And, if that fails, as any reader here knows, someone will look after you really well if you have any question.
I'm sure I have missed lots so please add anything I have missed above whether it be positive or negative.
PP
. I really don't have time to re-read thoroughly anything I write here but, if anything I do write here is crappy, or needs correction, please send me a PM and I'll make it a priority to fix it.
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. Please make sure credits go to BIABrewer.info 
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