CP's Brew Chart 2.0

[CPooley4]

CP. it needs a hot girl to enter in all the numbers, can you add that plz, it will increase my "functionality"

Tim

I would suggest you allow the user to enter the boil-off rate and calculate the boil volume in the spreadsheet. That is how most brewing software packages operate. Pre-fill at the standard boil-off around 10% and let the user adjust for their equipment.

that can be done. I'll put it on the list of upgrades for the next release. I'm just about done with a kegging calculator/how to and will get the boil off rate done after that. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[NorCalAngler]

that can be done. I'll put it on the list of upgrades for the next release. I'm just about done with a kegging calculator/how to and will get the boil off rate done after that. Thanks for the suggestion.

After looking into it more I see what you're saying about the boil-off rate being equipment specific. I switched to all grain a few batches ago and have been relying on the software to tell me my boil volume. However, now that I think about it, it doesn't make any sense that software calculates boil-off rate as a percentage of the volume of wort. I wouldn't boil off more on my system just because I have an extra 1/2 gallon of wort in my recipe. It seems boil-off should be a standard rate per hour, not a percentage of wort volume.

 

[CPooley4]

Very true. I can put together a calculation that is specific to your equipment. I just have to figure out how to set it up in the spreadsheet due to lack of available cells. It would be something that should theoretically be accurate, but wouldn't allow for someone to just input a figure on their own. I'll look into it and see what I can come up with. Really all it should need is the diameter of your kettle, but where I put that cell is something I'm going to have to play with a bit.

 

[CPooley4]

I've done some research. To put together an accurate calculation for this there is just too many variables that need to be considered. It's best to leave it as is since everyone has a different system and brews in different climates. The variables needed would be diameter of kettle, current temperature, humidity, wind, kettle space, BTU's, etc... Too much imo. I tried to simplify it with a calculation, but it just doesn't look accurate based upon my last brew. Was off by about .5 gallons.

Here is the calculation that I used - Batch Size +(((3.141592654*((Diameter of kettle in inches/2)*(Diameter of kettle in inches/2)))/150)/60)*Boil time

If someone wants to double check that calculation based off of their last brew to tell me how accurate it is for them I'd appreciate it.

 

[MX1]

Equipment stats is where I get lost right now, but then I never really cared to keep track, one reason why I could never brew the same beer twice...lol

I am rebuilding my set up, my plan is to just set up 7 gallons of water, boil for an hour, and then I will know....now..if you could make a cell that would let us plug a number like that into it, that would be sweet.

Tim

PS: and hot chicks too

 

[arch1tect]

CP, the only reason I'm suggesting this is because it's just got way too much info on that page IMO. If I enter all info that I need I like a plan brew sheet so I can print it. I don't really like to use my computer when I'm brewing because I tend to make a mess plus I stream from it.

I think you've done a great deal of work and it is a great sheet. Just too cluttered for my tastes. Even if you leave that sheet and create a report sheet that you can print with the info it would be great.

 

[CPooley4]

That's an interesting thought arch1tect. Maybe a tab for printing a brewday sheet.

What specific info would you be looking for? Essentially just the left side of the first page I assume? If so, you could always do a print preview of that page and set the print boundaries to just that side. That way you'll have a printed page of just that information. I do like the idea of a brewday page for printing though as well. Could put the brewer schedule and notes section on there as well.

Just keep in mind that the brewday section of that first page is really setup to interact with your brewday. It takes care of all the math for you and helps you with any necessary adjustments to be made to better match the beer you are brewing with the recipe.

Thanks again for the thoughts.

cp

 

[CPooley4]

Equipment stats is where I get lost right now, but then I never really cared to keep track, one reason why I could never brew the same beer twice...lol

I am rebuilding my set up, my plan is to just set up 7 gallons of water, boil for an hour, and then I will know....now..if you could make a cell that would let us plug a number like that into it, that would be sweet.

Tim

PS: and hot chicks too

That's a good thought as well Tim. It would essentially be an evaporation rate cell. You would track what your boil off rate per hour (in gallons) is and use that rate per hour figure in the cell. Good idea.

There would some subtle differences between 5, 10, and 15 gallon batches as the amount of BTU's used effects different volumes differently. I could add a note to the cell to remind users of it with recommendations of what to do if scaling up or down from there typical batch size.

Thanks again.

cp

 

[Gavagai]

This is very helpful. Thank you.

I have a question about the priming calculator, though. Can you explain why it asks for highest fermentation temperature, rather than temperature at bottling? Also, your values for cane sugar are consistently slightly lower than I've seen elsewhere. It seems to be about 92.5% cane sugar for a given weight of corn sugar, whereas I've heard 95%. Is your formula more accurate?

 

[CPooley4]

No problem. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.

 

[CPooley4]

This is very helpful. Thank you.

I have a question about the priming calculator, though. Can you explain why it asks for highest fermentation temperature, rather than temperature at bottling? Also, your values for cane sugar are consistently slightly lower than I've seen elsewhere. It seems to be about 92.5% cane sugar for a given weight of corn sugar, whereas I've heard 95%. Is your formula more accurate?

Didn't see your question on the previous response.

My understanding is that you want to use the highest fermentation temp in order to calculate the approximate amount of co2 already in solution. The higher the temp the lower the amount of co2 in solution. Since fermentation allows for the release of the co2 and it's not getting absorbed back into our wort we want to know the highest temp during fermentation as that will give us the closest approximation of co2 in solution prior to bottling.

The cane sugar figure came from John Palmer's How to Brew if I remember correctly. Can't state whether it's more accurate than what you have there.

If you have other questions please don't hesitate to ask.

cp

 

[NorCalAngler]

Thank you for being so active with your spreadsheet. Another question I have is regarding grain temperature. This plays a huge role in strike temperature, but I don't see a field for adjusting the grain temperature. Can you share the default used? Ideally there would be a field to adjust the grain temp.

Another issue is with my big IPA I have to use 1lb of corn sugar in the boil. However, adding it to the grain list gives me an artificially high first and second gravity estimate. I guess I can put the sugar in to get the estimated OG then back it out so I can get more accurate first and second running gravity.

 

[CPooley4]

Yep, it is set at 65 degrees.

It really does not make that big of a difference. I just ran two scenarios:

1. 9 lbs of grain with a mash temp of 153:

grain temp of 65 = 163 strike temp
grain temp of 70 = 162 strike temp
grain temp of 60 = 163 strike temp
grain temp of 55 = 164 strike temp

2. 15 lbs of grain with a mash temp of 153

grain temp of 65 = 167 strike temp
grain temp of 70 = 166 strike temp
grain temp of 60 = 167 strike temp
grain temp of 55 = 168 strike temp

I always recommend going into your mash tun with water about 5 degrees higher than your planned strike temp (you've already preheated the tun as well). Once that water is about 2 - 3 degrees higher than your planned strike temp begin to add your grains and mix well. This process alleviates any concern about hitting too low which is a much bigger pain than being a little high. You can always keep the lid open and stir to get the temp down if needed prior to closing it up.

If you have any further questions please don't hesitate to ask.

cp

 

[NorCalAngler]

I would argue 2 degrees is a big difference. I have always read that mashing at 150 produces a much drier beer than mashing at 152. Perhaps the issue is with my process. I put the strike water in the tun a bit hotter than the strike temp. I let it cool to strike temp and then add my grain. If your calculator expects my grain to be 65 and it is room temp at 70 then my mash is going to be a degree higher than I intended. I guess there won't be much harm done if I take your advice and just stir the mash until I hit my target mash temp. I'm just a little OCD and if my grain temperature is a variable in determining the strike temp then I don't like that I can't control it in the worksheet.

 

[Gavagai]

Didn't see your question on the previous response.

My understanding is that you want to use the highest fermentation temp in order to calculate the approximate amount of co2 already in solution. The higher the temp the lower the amount of co2 in solution. Since fermentation allows for the release of the co2 and it's not getting absorbed back into our wort we want to know the highest temp during fermentation as that will give us the closest approximation of co2 in solution prior to bottling.

The cane sugar figure came from John Palmer's How to Brew if I remember correctly. Can't state whether it's more accurate than what you have there.

If you have other questions please don't hesitate to ask.

cp

Interesting. That makes sense. I wonder why other priming calculators don't do this.

 

[CPooley4]

I would argue 2 degrees is a big difference. I have always read that mashing at 150 produces a much drier beer than mashing at 152. Perhaps the issue is with my process. I put the strike water in the tun a bit hotter than the strike temp. I let it cool to strike temp and then add my grain. If your calculator expects my grain to be 65 and it is room temp at 70 then my mash is going to be a degree higher than I intended. I guess there won't be much harm done if I take your advice and just stir the mash until I hit my target mash temp. I'm just a little OCD and if my grain temperature is a variable in determining the strike temp then I don't like that I can't control it in the worksheet.

I get your concern, I'm a bit OCD myself. However, no calculator is ever going to give an exact answer for everyone across the board. There are too many variables to hitting your mash temp to know/control for and for maintaining mash temp during the mash (process, preheat of tun, insulation of tun, temp of room/outside, wind, humidity, space in tun, location of thermometer in your tun, hot/cold pockets in your tun, etc...). By going in a little higher than the recommended strike temp, stirring well to break up dough balls etc..., and watching temp with your thermometer as it comes down you're going to be in great shape. I'd be willing to bet that if I put two beers in front of you with one mashed at 151 and the other mashed at 152 you'd have a difficult time saying with any certainty which is which (I know I would). Many homebrewers are happy if they can keep their mash within a certain range (+/- a degree or two) during their mash due to the factors we just don't know and can't control above.

If you want me to change that calculation in the cell to a different temp that better reflects your climate for you I don't mind doing so. Part of my intention with putting the spreadsheet together was to make brewing as easy as possible for people while still giving them as much good info to work with as possible. Hard thing to do and I'm not going to please everyone of course, though I certainly want to do what I can. There are so many details that have little effects here and there that I just can't put all of it on there. PM me your email address and what temp you'd prefer and I'll get it off to you if you want it done. I could even send you a copy with that cell unprotected so you could edit yourself each time you brew if you'd prefer.

I appreciate the feedback and don't hesitate to offer more.

cp

 

[CPooley4]

Interesting. That makes sense. I wonder why other priming calculators don't do this.

Not sure really. It makes sense that they would/should. Pretty sure that Yooper was the one that brought up that fact when I was doing my research (one of her older posts). These forums have such great information. Quite a bit of the answers to my questions/research were had with searches of these forums.

If you have any further questions don't hesitate to ask.

cp

 

[CPooley4]

Thank you for being so active with your spreadsheet. Another question I have is regarding grain temperature. This plays a huge role in strike temperature, but I don't see a field for adjusting the grain temperature. Can you share the default used? Ideally there would be a field to adjust the grain temp.

Another issue is with my big IPA I have to use 1lb of corn sugar in the boil. However, adding it to the grain list gives me an artificially high first and second gravity estimate. I guess I can put the sugar in to get the estimated OG then back it out so I can get more accurate first and second running gravity.

I didn't notice the 2nd part of you question earlier, sorry. I'm actually adding that functionality with the next release so you don't have to do the work around. Hoping to have it finished sometime soon here.

cp

 

[MX1]

CP just sent me some new versions of the sheet for "beta" testing...lol

They are looking great, and he is really trying to take into account all the feedback.

I can't even fathom the amount of hours he must have already spent on this project.

Thanks CP for all that you do.

Tim

 

[CPooley4]

Thanks Tim, really appreciate it. I'm almost finished with the new version. Should be done over the next week depending upon how much time I can spend on it at home after work. Kids come first of course

All told, I think I'm covering everybody's ideas/thoughts/wants in a way that I'm comfortable with as well. I've figured out how to have drop downs/vlookups for all the ingredients while still giving the user the ability to change the maximum points/yield from each grain and the color. You'll also be able to add to the ingredient lists that show in the drop downs as well to build it to your liking. I'm pretty excited about it. Even got NorCal's grain temp cell built into it.

I'll hopefully be posting it soon.

cp

 

[CPooley4]

I had a good question from a member here regarding the comments the show up in certain cells. Some of those comments are rather large and get cut off from being able to view it in whole by just scrolling over it. If you want to view the whole comment you just need to "right click" on the cell and hit "show comment". That will keep it on the screen rather than having it disappear when you scroll off of that particular cell. Once you're done viewing it just do the same, but hit "hide comment" instead.

 

[MX1]

right now, my only question is what value are we putting in the boil off cell?

Also, dont forget to double check your instrustions page to cove all the new bling...

Tim

 

[CPooley4]

That's up to you my friend I would suggest starting with 1.25 gallons. Once you get it dialed in to your system you'll have exactly what you need going forward. By the way, that cell will be gallons per hour.

I was actually thinking of that this morning on my drive in to work (Instructions). Everytime I think I come up with something I need to get updated. It's starting to become a problem

 

[MX1]

Gallons per is what i was looking for...thx

and yes, you do seemed obsessed, but hey, I am getting a great tool out of it...lol

T

 

[CPooley4]

Whoops, should have known that is what you were asking about.

Yeah, it's a fun project for me. No reason to stop since I've already invested so much time/energy into it and I have a good time doing it. All the feedback in this thread is really going to pay off. Hopefully after the next release there will be similar feedback so it can keep growing and getting better.

 

[mike_fini]

Hello. Is there a link to this list/chart? The one on the first post doesn't work now.
Thanks
Mike