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CPooley4 · 02-16-2011, 09:34 PM

Not a problem Tim. I appreciate it.

cp

hogie1980 · 02-16-2011, 10:09 PM

Thanks for telling me about this in my other post. Trying it out now and I have a few questions... What is the water to grain ratio it's using? Does it assume a 10% absorption? Is it possible to unprotect the Strike temp because I was planning on 170F?

CPooley4 · 02-17-2011, 12:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hogie1980

Thanks for telling me about this in my other post. Trying it out now and I have a few questions... What is the water to grain ratio it's using? Does it assume a 10% absorption? Is it possible to unprotect the Strike temp because I was planning on 170F?

No problem.

The water to grain ratio is a calculation designed so that you will obtain half of your boil volume from your mash and the other half from your sparge. The number you see in the cell is in gallons. To convert it to quarts you would multiply by 4. My work in this area of the brew chart was based on the work/research of Ken Schwartz and Kai at braukaiser.com Their work/research on batch sparge brewing shows that our best efficiency is obtained this way. You can read more about this at:

Ken Schwartz - http://home.roadrunner.com/~brewbeer/files/nbsparge.html
Kai - http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/Batch_Sparging_Analysis

It assumes an absorption of .125 gallons per pound of grain.

No reason to unprotect the strike temp cell really. If you don't want to use the calculation within the cell just use the amount you prefer instead. That cell doesn't effect any of the other calcs. I would tell you that my experience and most everyone I've interacted with have found it to be very accurate. It is science/math so assuming you are inputting your figures correctly and pre-heating your mash tun it should work well. My recommendation is always to go into your mash tun about 5 degrees higher than the calc tells you and allow it to come down to about 2-3 degrees higher than the recommendedtemp. That will alleviate any concern about further heat loss in your tun. At that time begin adding your grains while stirring well. As you're stirring monitor the temp and close it up when you hit your desired mash temp. This process eliminates the concern of being too low with your mash temp which is a much bigger pain in the ass than being a little high. If you're a little high you just keep stirring while it's open until you reach the temp you want.

If you go to the brewday tab you'll see the brewer schedule as well. This details my process which may be of some help. You can of course re-write that if you'd like as well.

If you have any further questions please don't hesitate to ask. Appreciate any feedback as it allows me to keep improving this thing. The last time I posted a version there was some great feedback which propelled it to where it is now. It's essentially turned into a homebrewtalk thing and not just my thing which is pretty cool.

cp

Jrome · 02-17-2011, 01:23 AM

Hey CP,
So I used your 2.0 version for a tripel I brewed and everything went great! Volumes spot on, temps spot on, it was probably my most successful brew day to date.

My only question is regarding the mash ratio. While the 50% mash 50% sparge worked well for me when I tried it, I can't help but wonder why almost everything I've read has the mash at 1.25 q/lbs or something along those lines.

Are there any foreseeable drawbacks to mashing in with so much water?

CPooley4 · 02-17-2011, 01:41 AM

That's great to hear. The whole purpose of this project was to help not only myself on brewdays, but whomever else I could as well. Make sure to download version 3.0 and transfer your brews to it. It's quite an upgrade over 2.0.

I'm not aware of any drawbacks. If there are any I'd like to see the research behind it. Kai has done great research over at www.braukaiser.com. It's really great stuff if you get a chance to review it. Covers most everything you'd like covered on batch sparging.

1.25 q/lbs is perfectly fine as well. However, it's not going to get you 50/50 on your runnings. Plenty of ways to brew with even more opinions out there on how to do it. I've chosen to base my work on the best info/research I could find out there. It works great for me and many others. My opinion is if I'm going to spend all this time brewing I want to do things optimally as it should lead to the best product I can produce. I hope that others find this tool pushing/leading them towards producing a better product as well.

If you have other questions etc... please don't hesitate to let me know.

cp

millstone · 02-17-2011, 12:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MX1

Tom,

Have you tried converting this to Numbers, and if so, have you found any issues yet?

If you mean did I try putting a number in the cell just to the right of the radio buttons, yes. I put in number 1 for the Bicarbonate radio button, number 2 for the Alkalinity button and a 0 for no radio button. Also, selecting either of the radio buttons using a MAC worked also.

tom

MX1 · 02-17-2011, 12:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by millstone

If you mean did I try putting a number in the cell just to the right of the radio buttons, yes. I put in number 1 for the Bicarbonate radio button, number 2 for the Alkalinity button and a 0 for no radio button. Also, selecting either of the radio buttons using a MAC worked also.

tom

No, what I was asking is have you converted it from Excel to Numbers ( Mac's spreadsheet program)