Hi, I'm Larry one of the people who work on brewersfriend.com.
The calculator uses pre-boil volumes of water and balances the minerals against that. The reason being, that is how it would work if the water coming off the tap was exactly what you wanted.
If you are doing multiple mash steps then you would want to take into account total water usage and balance the mineral additions across the infusions.
If you are doing an extract style recipe, add the minerals to the water before you start steeping or boiling. If you really wanted to dial it in, add small mineral additions to the water you are diluting with (for flavor ion concentration). I'm not actually sure this is necessary, probably overkill, but I've never done any experiments.
The beer will work itself out - RDWHAHB!
Last edited by larrybrewer; 09-20-2009 at 06:50 PM.
Glad to see you here, Larry! The NaCl addition on the form looks to be problematic. It sometimes shows an amount in teaspoons even when the amount by mass is blank.
By the way, I LOVE the calculator. It's among the best and simplest I've seen.
A suggestion for your site overall: give credit where credit is due.
To my knowledge, the term SMaSH originated on this forum, yet you make no mention of that in your post. I think Orfy coined the term.
Your "How to bottle beer from the keg" post outlines a method that originated here, also (the "BMBF"). BierMuncher is the man on that one.
Your CCB Haus Pale shares its name and basic recipe outline with EdWort's Haus Pale. While no one will ever be 100% sure, it certainly looks like Ed's recipe was the basis for yours.
Your "no chill" post closely mirrors the timeframe that no chill brewing was a hot topic here as well. Again, we'll never be able to prove it, but it's not outside the realm of possibility. Consider mentioning deathweed, The Pol, et al on your site.
The CCB Haus Ale (not Haus Pale Ale) is my own recipe, and I wrote the article. I have never paid much mind to Eds Haus Pale Ale recipe... but recipe similarities are pretty common. This was one of my first brews about 4 years ago. (looking at Eds recipe now... I dont see a stark similarity, the malts differ, the OG, and the IBUs are way off FWIW...)
The No Chill thing, again... I wrote that, no need to give credit to me, the information comes from my useage of the method and the plethera of information scattered about.
The bottling from a keg article was based upon what I learned from building and using BMs tool here on HBT as well as other sources, including method recomendations from friends who are also HBers.
I also wrote the article on SMaSH brewing... I am completely unaware where the term was coined. Everthing gets its name somewhere, from someone, and I am not familiar with the roots of these terms. Sorry, dont know how I would have known this.
Sorry for all this? I guess I dont know what to say...
I love the calculator. In my opinion it is the best one out there.
The only thing that would be nice to see, based on the OP, is an entry for mash/sparge volume - that way it could calculate the amount of additions for each step. Right now I change the water volume and do it in two steps.
I forgot to add - the calculator and the articles on brewersfreind got me started on the path to fixing my water. Prior to which my beer was ruinous. So I guess you could say it saved my life. Although that's probably a bit of an understatement.
Brewer's Friend Water Chemistry Calculator
Linear Mode
