Another iPhone app- BIABCalc (Free)

I made a free iPhone app based on my Brew in a Bag calculator. I found for BIAB, I needed the reverse of what most calculators did, so I made it, first for web, and then for iPhone.

Given the volume of your mash tun and the amount of grain, it calculates how much water to heat up. Before, I would always heat up too much water, and it would overflow when I put the grain in, making a mess. Now, the grain raises the level to exactly the right level.

It also calculates the strike temp, to help you hit your mash temps.

Check it out on the App Store and let me know what you think!

jamesnsw said:

I made a free iPhone app based on my Brew in a Bag calculator. I found for BIAB, I needed the reverse of what most calculators did, so I made it, first for web, and then for iPhone.

Given the volume of your mash tun and the amount of grain, it calculates how much water to heat up. Before, I would always heat up too much water, and it would overflow when I put the grain in, making a mess. Now, the grain raises the level to exactly the right level.

It also calculates the strike temp, to help you hit your mash temps.

Check it out on the App Store and let me know what you think!

Click to expand...

Downloaded, it looks great & I'll try it out this weekend. It would be great if it was in litres & centigrade aswell but that's only a small thing

Edit: I ran the numbers against this w/ends planned recipe and damn close .1•f deference. Makes the calcs easy to do (other than converting to metric ). Good job

Cheers +1 on the metric units. Again cheers

Nice calculator, the sliders are pita though, it takes a number of tries to get spot on. Maybe go to keyed in entry or a +/- button to increment the values.

CS223 said:

Nice calculator, the sliders are pita though, it takes a number of tries to get spot on. Maybe go to keyed in entry or a +/- button to increment the values.

Click to expand...

Agreed- I have some ideas to make this a bit better. Stay tuned!

OhCrap said:

Downloaded, it looks great & I'll try it out this weekend. It would be great if it was in litres & centigrade aswell but that's only a small thing

Edit: I ran the numbers against this w/ends planned recipe and damn close .1•f deference. Makes the calcs easy to do (other than converting to metric ). Good job

Click to expand...

Thanks! Metric is on the todo list.

Anyone use this over the weekend? Any feedback on accuracy?

I'm going to use this for my first 5 gallon BIAB batch on June 30th for a club brew. I've been playing around with it and I agree that getting the sliders to the exact number you're trying to enter is difficult. Other than that it looks good, thanks for the app!

I'm working on adding metric- are any of you interested in beta testing that? I'd like to make sure that I get units and conversions done right. PM me your email address if you're interested.

Gave it a quick test. Sent email regarding conversions.

OhCrap said:

Gave it a quick test. Sent email regarding conversions.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the response! I'll get you another version soon.

Any thoughts on building for the iPad?

Duh, I should have checked the App Store first... Now I have to see what version of iOS I have on my iPad..

I need a teenager around the house.. tech is/has passed me by.

BIABCalc 2.0 is out now, with better slider control and, yes, metric!

Let me know how it's working for you. For better slider control, simply move your finger vertically away from the slider for fine tuning. This is similar to what you get in the Music app.

Check it out- BIABCalc 2.0.

OOPS.. shuda gone directly to the App store to view the requirements.. Thought it was for the iPhone only.. There it was.. plain as the schnoz o my face.. iPad.

Thanks...

HbgBill said:

OOPS.. shuda gone directly to the App store to view the requirements.. Thought it was for the iPhone only.. There it was.. plain as the schnoz o my face.. iPad.

Thanks...

Click to expand...

Great! I hope you find it useful!

jamesnsw said:

Great! I hope you find it useful!

Click to expand...

Got it on the iPad.. and it came defaulted to Metric.. being old and technically challenged, I don't see how to change it to 'merican measures.. I'm sure it's a "duh" once I see it..

HbgBill said:

Got it on the iPad.. and it came defaulted to Metric.. being old and technically challenged, I don't see how to change it to 'merican measures.. I'm sure it's a "duh" once I see it..

Click to expand...

Hit the Info button, and then it's at the bottom of that page. It's hidden enough that I won't give you a hard time .

Also, thanks for pointing that out. All my beta testers this round wanted metric, so they didn't complain. Most users want US though, so I'll submit an update that fixes this.

Sorry, on my app (iPad) I hit Info and a drop down pops up describing the different volumes etc.. but nothing about converting.. Even if I touch any of the "i"s.. I'm given def's.. but nothing about conversion..

Forgot to add.. when I hit "Info" what I mentioned above is "About".. but to the left side of the dropdown I see BIABcalc.. at the bottom of that is a slider for US/Metric. No matter which way I slide it .. I get Metric

Geez, I'm a pain.

Love it! Any chance of having us gallons instead of quarts? At least as an option? My sight glass (and probably others) is calibrated with gallons.

Thanks!

You should add the ability to set the desired batch size.

FlyDoctor said:

Love it! Any chance of having us gallons instead of quarts? At least as an option? My sight glass (and probably others) is calibrated with gallons.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Maybe I misunderstood your request but most use quarts because gallons are to large of a scale when figuring water to grist ratio.

Any plans for an Android version?

HbgBill said:

Sorry, on my app (iPad) I hit Info and a drop down pops up describing the different volumes etc.. but nothing about converting.. Even if I touch any of the "i"s.. I'm given def's.. but nothing about conversion..

Forgot to add.. when I hit "Info" what I mentioned above is "About".. but to the left side of the dropdown I see BIABcalc.. at the bottom of that is a slider for US/Metric. No matter which way I slide it .. I get Metric

Geez, I'm a pain.

Click to expand...

This isn't set up as a converter, per se. It will convert your values that you have, but that's not what it's purpose.

As far as switching, I see what's going on now- I don't have an iPad, so I didn't realize that this was happening differently there.

Try this-
Hit Info, and click on US in the bar at the bottom.
Hit the home button to exit the app.
Double tap the home button to bring up the running apps.
Press and hold the BIABCalc icon until it wiggles.
Hit the X to quit the background process.
Relaunch BIABCalc. It should now be on US.

Sorry for this!

BlakeL said:

You should add the ability to set the desired batch size.

Click to expand...

Can you elaborate on this?

Uziyahu said:

Any plans for an Android version?

Click to expand...

No, unless someone else volunteers to do the coding.

jamesnsw said:

Can you elaborate on this?

Click to expand...

I do 1 gallon BIAB batches in a 2.5 gallon pot. It would be nice if you factored this in along with the boil time to determine how much water i'll need. For my last batch I used 1.8 gallons with about 3 lbs of grain and ended up with just a little over a gallon after the boil.

BlakeL said:

I do 1 gallon BIAB batches in a 2.5 gallon pot. It would be nice if you factored this in along with the boil time to determine how much water i'll need. For my last batch I used 1.8 gallons with about 3 lbs of grain and ended up with just a little over a gallon after the boil.

Click to expand...

Ok, I see. I'll keep this in mind, but I think there are other tools that do this. My goal for this app is to fill in the cracks on a calculation I was doing all the time, but couldn't find anywhere.

jamesnsw said:

This isn't set up as a converter, per se. It will convert your values that you have, but that's not what it's purpose.

As far as switching, I see what's going on now- I don't have an iPad, so I didn't realize that this was happening differently there.

Try this-
Hit Info, and click on US in the bar at the bottom.
Hit the home button to exit the app.
Double tap the home button to bring up the running apps.
Press and hold the BIABCalc icon until it wiggles.
Hit the X to quit the background process.
Relaunch BIABCalc. It should now be on US.

Sorry for this!

Click to expand...

You da bomb.. worked.. Now, IF I can just remember this to go back to metric.. if I ever do..

HbgBill said:

You da bomb.. worked.. Now, IF I can just remember this to go back to metric.. if I ever do..

Click to expand...

I'm working on an update to fix this right now... it should hit the App store in about 10 days.

Fair play to you, I gave it a good test today and no glitches that I could find. USA 2 metric and back all perfect. I'm doing a BIAB on sat so I'll report back after that

OhCrap said:

Fair play to you, I gave it a good test today and no glitches that I could find. USA 2 metric and back all perfect. I'm doing a BIAB on sat so I'll report back after that

Click to expand...

Great! Thanks for all the beta testing you've done!

Ok, one more (?) question for the OP or other BIAB'ers. I've not gotten into BIAB yet.. but have bought the bag and it will likely be my next brew once I return from vacation in early Aug.

My Kettle Volume is 7 gallons.. but, I want to end up with a 5 G batch. When I plug my kettle size into BIABCalc, I get 25.84 qts water at 160.7*F using 13# grain. Does this seem right? What if, say, I wanted to do a 6 G batch and had an 8 or 10G pot? How does BIABCalc know what the batch size is.. I see no place for that inuput.

Be kind.. I'm really just an extract w/grains brewer at this point. It may be obvious.. but, I'm in the learnin stage

HbgBill said:

Ok, one more (?) question for the OP or other BIAB'ers. I've not gotten into BIAB yet.. but have bought the bag and it will likely be my next brew once I return from vacation in early Aug.

My Kettle Volume is 7 gallons.. but, I want to end up with a 5 G batch. When I plug my kettle size into BIABCalc, I get 25.84 qts water at 160.7*F using 13# grain. Does this seem right? What if, say, I wanted to do a 6 G batch and had an 8 or 10G pot? How does BIABCalc know what the batch size is.. I see no place for that inuput.

Be kind.. I'm really just an extract w/grains brewer at this point. It may be obvious.. but, I'm in the learnin stage

Click to expand...

Good question, Bill.
I have a 7.5 gallon pot, and if I mash more than about 15 pounds or so, I actually end up with less than 5 gallons at the end of the boil, and need to add more.

What BIABCalc does is maximize the amount of liquid possible, both for a thinner mash, and to avoid having to top off at the end. It assumes that for most BIABers, they will end up with less wort than they need.

It isn't a problem unless, as you say, you're doing 5 gallons of mild in a 10 gal pot. I'm guessing most BIABers are going to be in a smaller kettle, but I am going to have to figure out how to deal with this, whether just warning people so they don't end up with 15 gallons of 1.008 wort, or something else.

bad67z said:

Maybe I misunderstood your request but most use quarts because gallons are to large of a scale when figuring water to grist ratio.

Click to expand...

The way I do it is I use the Calculator (from BIABinfo) to determine how much water I need for the mash accounting for water absorption by the grain, the boil-off rate, and the batch size. Then I fill the keggle until I hit that volume using the sightglass from from Bobby_M to guage the volume. These are callibrated in gallons. So using quarts is fine, though I need to then convert quarts to gallons when collecting the mash water in the keggle.

Love to hear if others do it differently, but I thought quarts was more of a conventional mash-tun thing as I thought most BIAB is done with full-volume no sparge.

Thanks for a great app.