Still Working on for Numbers for BIAB

Since last December I have done 6 batches through my home built E-kettle BIAB system. I had to take a break after the first three after I found my water was extremely hard. RO system installed and back brewing.

I'm still trying to dial my numbers in. I'm having issues with my boil-off rate so I did a test run it appears my system's boil-off rate is 2.0 Gals/Hr. I brewed a Nut Brown Ale today and my estimated original gravity according to BeerSmith was to be 1.054. I used the Priceless BIAB calculator to get my numbers. After my 60 minute boil I was about a half gallon high but my SG was 1.057 so I stopped the boil.

Here's my final numbers for the Priceless calculator which I'm still trying to figure out. Are my numbers Ok? I'm wondering why by having an extra 1/2 gallon of wort I still hit the estimated OG.

Hope these are easy to read.

Thanks for your help.

Your efficiency was up just a bit. I do this just about every brew. I always calculate 6 gallon batches at 78% efficiency but generally end up with about 6.2 gallons at 81% or so efficiency. Better to estimate a bit low than a bit high. Actually seems like you did a good job of estimating everything beforehand which is good. As long as you are within a few percent then all is well.

casualbrewer said:

Your efficiency was up just a bit. I do this just about every brew. I always calculate 6 gallon batches at 78% efficiency but generally end up with about 6.2 gallons at 81% or so efficiency. Better to estimate a bit low than a bit high. Actually seems like you did a good job of estimating everything beforehand which is good. As long as you are within a few percent then all is well.

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I'm still trying to get a grasp on the program. You mention my efficiency was up. What do you mean by that?

Which entries for estimate values are you referring to?

I still don't get what the difference is between the measured mash gravity and the measured pre-boil gravity. Could you explain the difference.

Thanks much.

Mash Gravity is just for what your gravity reading is after you mash only, aka pre sparge. Pre-boil is after sparge and your ready to boil.

deuce40 said:

Mash Gravity is just for what your gravity reading is after you mash only, aka pre sparge. Pre-boil is after sparge and your ready to boil.

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Thanks. I don't do a sparge but I do squeeze like no end. I just looked back at my notes I made from some discussions with Pricelessbrewing. He told me to average the post-boil SG with the SG after I squeezed and enter it in the Measured Mash Gravity cell. Hope I wrote that down right.

The Measured Pre-boil gravity is the reading after I squeezed.

Should have remembered my notes from early this year.

I still get confused on what the efficiency readings all mean or tell me.

You said you were 1/2 gal over volume, you have "mash tun losses" set to 1/2 gallon. If you are BIAB'ing isn't that zero? That would explain it I think.

Ok not sure but what I found is on the original entries into the Priceless software it gave me 8.85 gallons. That's what I started with. The next day after I entered my numbers I see the water amount was 8.35 gallons. Not sure what is going on. If I would have used 8.35 gallons I would have been dead on. What's up with this?

Bigarcherynut said:

Ok not sure but what I found is on the original entries into the Priceless software it gave me 8.85 gallons. That's what I started with. The next day after I entered my numbers I see the water amount was 8.35 gallons. Not sure what is going on. If I would have used 8.35 gallons I would have been dead on. What's up with this?

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Hard to tell unless you have screen grabs of both sets of inputs. It could be something as simple as @chickypad said like changing the mash tun loss from 1/2 gal to 0.

Can you specify which input parameters and which output parameters you don't understand? I can probably explain most of them to you, but I don't want to write an explanation for every field when you probably understand most of them.

Brew on

doug293cz said:

Hard to tell unless you have screen grabs of both sets of inputs. It could be something as simple as @chickypad said like changing the mash tun loss from 1/2 gal to 0.

Can you specify which input parameters and which output parameters you don't understand? I can probably explain most of them to you, but I don't want to write an explanation for every field when you probably understand most of them.



Brew on

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Thanks much for the offer. After doing some searching I found all the explanations in Priceless brewing info. It's a very helpful page that I didn't see before. It should answer all my questions but if not I'll let you know.

One question you could help me understand is how does the priceless program remember my data I enter like tun size, boil off rate etc?. It also talks about loading or saving defaults. Are those my defaults or the programs?

Also I currently take and save screen shots of each batch. Is there a way of just saving the data/program.

Thanks again.

Bigarcherynut said:

Thanks much for the offer. After doing some searching I found all the explanations in Priceless brewing info. It's a very helpful page that I didn't see before. It should answer all my questions but if not I'll let you know.

One question you could help me understand is how does the priceless program remember my data I enter like tun size, boil off rate etc?. Input data is stored on your computer by the javascript code. It also talks about loading or saving defaults. Are those my defaults or the programs? That I don't know, as I haven't tested that functionality personally.

Also I currently take and save screen shots of each batch. Is there a way of just saving the data/program. Not that I know of. It would require additional programming to provide that functionality. You could ask @pricelessbrewing to add that capability.

Thanks again.

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You ask hard questions. My offer was more about the meaning of the input parameters or output values, and how the calculations are done. I worked with @pricelessbrewing on the math for the mash and efficiency analysis, but haven't been involved with any of the actual coding. I answered as best I could in red above.

Brew on

doug293cz said:

You ask hard questions. My offer was more about the meaning of the input parameters or output values, and how the calculations are done. I worked with @pricelessbrewing on the math for the mash and efficiency analysis, but haven't been involved with any of the actual coding. I answered as best I could in red above.

Brew on

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You answered perfectly. Thanks for your help and for assisting with a great program.

It's coming together for me and I'm almost sure I now know what I need to take for readings and what they are telling me about my brewing process. It seemed over whelming at times but it's coming together.

Thanks again.

doug293cz said:

You ask hard questions. My offer was more about the meaning of the input parameters or output values, and how the calculations are done. I worked with @pricelessbrewing on the math for the mash and efficiency analysis, but haven't been involved with any of the actual coding. I answered as best I could in red above.

Brew on

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You answered perfectly.

Thanks for assisting with a great brewing program. Since being all grain brewing with my home built E-kettle BIAB system it seemed over whelming at times but with help from people here and yourself included have made it more understandable. I'm finally knowing what readings to take and what they are telling me about my system and my process.

Thanks again.

Thanks for helping out doug, as you have probably noticed I'm not on here very much lately. I'm in the middle of moving, and have been out of a computer for a couple weeks.

Data is stored locally on your computer via HTML5 local storage (triggered via javascript functions). I should be able to export that data and import it so people can more easily share their data (and submit files if they're having issues). ETA ~1 month hopefully.

If OG is as estimated, and volume is higher than expected, then efficiency is higher than expected.

I'm finally knowing what readings to take and what they are telling me about my system and my process.

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Awesome. That's one of my intentions.

Let me know if you have anymore questions, I'll do my best to respond. Since I can't get HBT access at work, you'll probably get a quicker response via reddit or email though!

Loading/saving defaults.

So it basicallys saves a set of data (input variables) under the name of the "Saved Data" text cell. For me, I have that autofilled to "Small batch" as that's what I brewed the most when I was working on it last. You can change that name to whatever you want, and basically mimic the behavior of an "equipment profile" or "mash profile" like you'll find in beersmith, brewtarget, etc.

So the defaults are the program defaults only as long as you have not overridden the values of "Small batch", or have changed the value of the dataset name.

Make sense?