mashmadeeasy feedback

[Blazinlow86]

curious about others experience with it? anyone confirm the ph tool works as well or better than brunwaters? which do you prefer or use? cheers

 

[Blazinlow86]

Silver_Is_Money said: ↑
BTW, thanks for opening up a thread regarding Mash Made Easy. I will only add to this (since it is off topic on this thread) that Bru'n Water has been available for more than a decade, whereas MME has been publicly available for only about 2 weeks more than a single year at this juncture. And I will also add that MME is essentially only known through my announcement made in regard to it on this very HBT forum, whereas Bru'n Water has had far more public access via far more and also far more diverse public outlets going well beyond merely HBT over its vast tenure, so to expect there to have been a lot of real world comparisons of MME vs. Bru'n Water at this quite early stage in the game for MME is perhaps a bit of a stretch. And since MME has greatly evolved right here on this forum over its first year to be a far better product than when first released, comparisons should validly be considered only for the latest release of MME. But I welcome the challenge.


this is a continuation from another thread that got off track fyi


good point it appears the prev releases were pretty buggy from the limited info out there. please only use the newest version to compare. cheers

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

As stated on the other thread, valid feedback must clearly be objective and unbiased, and not tainted with confirmation bias, or given from the perspective of one who bears a chip on his shoulder.

 

[Blazinlow86]

As stated on the other thread, valid feedback must clearly be objective and unbiased, and not tainted with confirmation bias, or given from the perspective of one who bears a chip on his shoulder.

Yes sir! As the creator of mashmadeeasy what would you descibe as improvements you have made over the other programs available? What's the best things about the software? Cheers

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Yes sir! As the creator of mashmadeeasy what would you descibe as improvements you have made over the other programs available? What's the best things about the software? Cheers

It's ability to conform to the generally presumed initial (or default) DI_pH of your base malt by class, and beyond that, its ability to accept actually measured DI_pH's for all malts, including base malts.

That, plus it does not get mired in nasty water to grist ratio issues which can lead to serious errors with respect to the consistency of the softwares adjustment output advice as for some other of the currently popular choices of mash pH assistant software (which may be correct in output for some water to grist ratios, and incorrect in output for other water to grist ratios). This issue can be seen on the other thread.

 

[Blazinlow86]

It's ability to conform to the generally presumed initial (or default) DI_pH of your base malt by class, and beyond that, its ability to accept actually measured DI_pH's for all malts, including base malts.

That, plus it does not get mired in nasty water to grist ratio issues which can lead to serious errors with respect to the consistency of the softwares adjustment output advice as for some other of the currently popular choices of mash pH assistant software (which may be correct in output for some water to grist ratios, and incorrect in output for other water to grist ratios). This issue can be seen on the other thread.

How does one find out the di_ph of there base malt? Does it still work without that info?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

How does one find out the di_ph of there base malt? Does it still work without that info?

To be truly precise in measuring DI pH you must mash 50 grams of each of your malts in 100 to 150 mL of distilled (or preferably de-ionized, or DI) water, and take a room temperature pH of the mash. This mash is to be done completely mineral free. And this must be repeated for every new lot of malts that you purchase. This pH measurement is the measure of a malts DI_pH.

And as to "can it function without such precise yet time consuming DI_pH measurement info?", the answer is "yes"! Any of 6 available "default" DI_pH ranges are selectable for your specific base malt. The drop down colored cell (see the "key" for cell color codes) for base malt DI_pH in the lower right hand corner is where you first gain instructions, and then make your actual drop-down selection for any given recipes predominant base malt. These 6 available default DI_pH selections will not be as good as measuring it yourself, but should be far better than having no such selections. And of course, all of the other malt classes have default DI_pH's in MME which you are free to accept or to override with hard DI_pH measurement data.

If you find that for your particular types of recipes MME is going overboard or underboard with its adjustment advice, you can dial it in to meet your satisfaction via these 6 base malt DI_pH selectors, and also via changing the grists "buffer" value, which ships pre-set to 35, with this latter selection choice specifically affecting only the impact of added calcium and magnesium mineralization upon downward pH shift during the mash. If you find via measurement that your added mineralization alone is not driving the mash pH down to MME's "default" degree when set to a buffer value of 35, raise it to the range of roughly 40, 45, or 50 until MME matches your actually measured and experienced downward pH shift during the mash via only added calcium and magnesium mineralization.

So in the end MME is highly conformable to the reality of your actual mash pH measurements in a number of critical ways that I do not believe to be available to you with other of such software. It's a simple matter of dialing it in to meet your mash pH measurements, or alternately if specific pH measurement during the mash is beyond your means, accepting the flexible defaults that it provides, and trusting my judgement in establishing the defaults. I believe that the lack of such a broad degree of intended flexibility was your primary gripe with BS3 (on a different thread). And it resulted in someone devising a 125% lactic acid strength "kludge" as a work-around.

 

[Blazinlow86]

Oh wow yea that's abit overly complicated for me. I don't need it down to the .001 just in the acceptable range. I'll give it a try using the defaults and compare to brunwater and report back. Seems to be a better comparison in real world practices. Cheers

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Oh wow yea that's abit overly complicated for me. I don't need it down to the .001 just in the acceptable range. I'll give it a try using the defaults and compare to brunwater and report back. Seems to be a better comparison in real world practices. Cheers

Do at a very minimum utilize the base malt DI_pH selector, which (due to instructions provided within that cell itself) should be quite intuitively easy to use. And then feel free to utilize the base malt DI_pH selections as "dial ins" to hone in MME and make it conform to your measurements, and not as rigid realities for all base malt cases. Failure to utilize this base malt dial-in tool may lead you to quite mistakenly believe MME's output to be skewed in one direction or another, as for your belief with regard to BS3.

Remember that in all cases your own carefully taken pH measurements should be trusted first and foremost to be correct, and software should merely be adjusted to conform, and not ever be believed over your own measurement, and thereby lead you down the path to a confirmation bias, wherein you may begin at some juncture to believe the software intrinsically over your own carefully monitored and properly undertaken measurements. This advice goes for all of such software.

 

[Blazinlow86]

Yup I have a decent meter and have been using it as long as brewing. No issues there. Another random question what made you decide on the name mashmadeeasy? Cheers

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Yup I have a decent meter and have been using it as long as brewing. No issues there. Another random question what made you decide on the name mashmadeeasy? Cheers

I needed a name that corresponded to and openly expressed the spreadsheets intuitive ease of use.

 

[Blazinlow86]

Any chance you would be willing to do a tutorial here to help new user's with all the extras required? Maybe just a simple recipe as a example?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Any chance you would be willing to do a tutorial here to help new user's with all the extras required? Maybe just a simple recipe as a example?

Someday, perhaps. The essentials of it are as detailed above though.

I do however need someone to confirm that the instructions which I planted within the base malt selector cell appear properly within Excel. I know they work for LibreOffice, and I have a confirmation that they appear (albeit via a slightly different means) in Google Sheets (I believe that's what its called), but I'm still in need of hearing as to whether or not this new addition appears in Excel.

For LibreOffice simply hover the cursor over this cell without clicking upon it, and the instructions will pop up.

 

[Blazinlow86]

I think it's a good idea. I think the reason it's not really catching on is it's overly complicated compared to brunwater. Have you ever done a side by side comparison between the 2? Is it that much more accurate the the easier brunwater method. I've always been within about 5% with brunwater. How much closer does mme get when doing all the extra stuff? Cheers

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I think it's a good idea. I think the reason it's not really catching on is it's overly complicated compared to brunwater. Have you ever done a side by side comparison between the 2? Is it that much more accurate the the easier brunwater method. I've always been within about 5% with brunwater. How much closer does mme get when doing all the extra stuff? Cheers

Funny, but I initiated it because I thought BW to be quite cumbersome, and I am annoyed by the hunt and peck method of adding minerals, acids, and baking soda, and also by having to mess with mineral and acid or caustic additions by the liter or gallon instead of by the batch. Enter your criteria, and MME tells you straight up what it initially asses to be required. No need to hunt and peck in an effort to finally come to a solution, or to get close enough and call it quits at that juncture out of shear frustration. That plus because I've discovered several output inconsistencies in BW that I can't live with because I know they can't be right.

As I've been trying to emphasize, Mash Made Easy is ultimately intended to be dialed in to match your pH measurements. So to ask of its inherent "accuracy" implies to me that you are still rather confused in regard to this end goal. Once again, measurement first, then hone MME as needed (recipe for recipe, or at least base malt change for base malt change) to conform to your pH measurements. And since there are 6 base malt default selectors, and 20 permitted buffer selection numerical values, and lastly the ability to enter actual measured DI-pH values, asking if it is precise is simply not a valid question.

 

[Blazinlow86]

To clarify what I mean was. Have you ever taken a given recipie. Done all the extra steps to get the di_ph then taken the same recipe and added it into brunwater. Then actually brewed said recipe and recorded the readings. And if so what we're the outcomes. Is that not possible?

 

[Blazinlow86]

Or another way. On the last say 5 brews you have done how close did your measured ph come to your target ph? There a more straight forward way to ask

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

It is possible, but I do not use BW. Before I began working on MME, I actively used the Kaiser Water Calculator. It generally got me within 0.15 pH. I'm a big fan of the brew-science based work of Kai Troester. And also that of A.J. deLange (though admittedly he is way out of my league, and I consider him a genius).

I initially got a bunch of DI_pH lab data directly from Briess, simply by asking them for it. More is available through Weyermann, though harder to find. And lastly, just recently D.M. Riffe and Mick Spencer published a work from which I was able to hone in on some additional DI_pH's and/or confirm my Briess derived models of same for various malt classes. From such data one can develop linear or non-linear best fit slopes. But the slopes only approximate the actual hard lab data.

 

[Blazinlow86]

Ok so forget brunwater. Just talking about Mme now only. On the last say 5 brews you have done how close did your measured ph come to your target ph? ive typical found brunwater to be say 5.38 actual if I was targeting 5.4. sometimes .01 higher or lower. Cheers

 

[Blazinlow86]

gave it a quick try using the default di mash value on a smash 2 row recipe ive made previously. it was recommending 9.93mL to brunwaters 3.9mL which would have been way too much as the actual brewday reading was 5.42 and my target was 5.39. maybe i will try taking the di reading of the specific 2 row and try again some other time. its also possible i missed something too. cheers

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Complete recipe, quantities, malt class and brand(s), and water information (initial analyticals, minerals added and their quantities, and mash/sparge water quantities) are required, rather than merely raw output numbers. Otherwise there is simply no way for anyone to know what you are talking about or objectively assess and evaluate the situation at all. Both myself and others must be able to fully duplicate your input/output for both software packages, objectively assess the likely reality of the situation, and then compare MME and BW (and also several others of such software) in order to assess the validity of what you are seeing. Were the output numbers for 88% lactic acid or something else? And what version numbers are you using for each software package?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

It should at this juncture be noted that when Mash Made Easy is first downloaded, it has a Pale Ale base malt SMaSH recipe of roughly ballpark 11 Plato already built in, and for a roughly 5.5 gallon to the fermenter batch size it requires only 1.94 mL of 88% lactic acid, as you will witness as soon as you first open it upon download. Double the batch size and mash water quantity to mash the same SMaSH recipe in an ~11 gallon to the fermenter batch size, while keeping mineral ppm's constant, and it calls for the addition of only 3.89 mL of lactic acid.

To get the "as downloaded" SMaSH recipe to hit ~9.93 mL of 88% lactic acid (as per Blazinlow86's comments seen above) required that it mash into 5 gallons of 49.5 ppm Ca++ water, but also with an exceedingly strange and quite high 270 ppm of alkalinity added to it. The same for which requires 7.99 mL to bring it to pH 5.4 if this 5 gallons of mash water was instead intended to be the sparge water.

9.93 - 7.99 = 1.94 mL, which is an identical match to the original 1.94 mL of required lactic acid, proving decisively that Mash Made Easy knows how to properly handle even ridiculous levels of alkalinity when present within mash water. This in and of itself may prove to be a rather interesting test for all other of such software to pass.

 

[Tribe Fan]

Silver- I use flaked rye quite often. Is there any appreciable difference in it's DI compared to oats? Same question for rice. The spec sheets are silent on these.
Cheers.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Silver- I use flaked rye quite often. Is there any appreciable difference in it's DI compared to oats? Same question for rice. The spec sheets are silent on these.
Cheers.

I have no personal experience with flaked rye, but D.M. Riffe has measured its DI_pH at a whopping 6.65. I remain somewhat suspect of this until it is verified by others. In your experience, has its use led to higher than predicted mash pH's?

I have no idea for rice. Sorry...

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

One difference I've recently noticed between BW and most others of such software (including MME) is that BW defaults CaCl2 (calcium chloride) to its pure anhydride form, whereas most others chose the dihydrate form (or CaCl2-2H20).

Unless you pull CaCl2 straight from a very hot oven (somewhere above 400 degrees F. as I recall) it will never quite be anhydrous (water free, or ~100% pure). I measured 2 small bottles of prills when first opened at about 94-95% CaCl2 and 5-6% mositure, and A.J. deLange has seen similar. But when opened it begins to absorb water from the air immediately, and after several openings the bottle is likely to have hit the dihydrate state, meaning it is now roughly 75% CaCl2 and 25% water by weight. A.J. has even placed it on an analytical grade balance and watched it continually gain weight as it absorbs water from the air.

This difference must be ratio compensated for in order to gain the same level of Ca++ ppm for BW vs. most other software of this type. Just some trivia that you should be aware of.

 

[Tribe Fan]

I have no personal experience with flaked rye, but D.M. Riffe has measured its DI_pH at a whopping 6.65. I remain somewhat suspect of this until it is verified by others. In your experience, has its use led to higher than predicted mash pH's?

I have no idea for rice. Sorry...

I'll sheepishly admit to having measured mash pH for the first time last week after 12 years of brewing.

I made a batch of saison that I didn't like at all and I'm narrowing down the issues. Mash water wasn't a problem, and the default for the rye is 6.2, so even overriding to 6.55 only moves the needle .02 for this recipe, which is coming in at 5.38. So I don't think mash pH was a problem either. It's taken a couple weeks of research to get to this point, but I design all of my recipes so now water chem and mash pH are in "the process".

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I'll sheepishly admit to having measured mash pH for the first time last week after 12 years of brewing.

I made a batch of saison that I didn't like at all and I'm narrowing down the issues. Mash water wasn't a problem, and the default for the rye is 6.2, so even overriding to 6.55 only moves the needle .02 for this recipe, which is coming in at 5.38. So I don't think mash pH was a problem either. It's taken a couple weeks of research to get to this point, but I design all of my recipes so now water chem and mash pH are in "the process".

This goes to show that good beer can be made without these tools. A.J.'s water primer is generally sufficient. The pH meter is a historically rather recent tool and more so when cost is involved. It was only quite recently that pH meters began to descend into the price affordability range of most home brewers. And what to make of the hundreds of years in which beer was successfully brewed before the advent of the pH meter and thus its availability at any price?

 

[Tribe Fan]

Indeed I made fantastic beers without these tools. Ignorance is bliss when you are using natural spring water almost as soft as pilsen. However, I quickly found out I can make bad beers when cluelessly using well water with a bicarb of 402 and alkalinity of 331.
The primer thread finally brought it all together for me. To me, that is seminal reading material right up there with Palmer's stuff.

Going through historical recipes, I don't have any pH problems since I switched to RO. But it will be interesting going forward to see different Ph's effect the final product. Temp certainly makes a huge difference and I measure that every time.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Yours is the first well water I've seen that is as bad as ours. And I followed the same path. I've made decent beers going back to the 80's, with all grain beginning in the early 90's, and all with natural spring water blessed with moderate mineral levels and low alkalinity, and with never a thought of monitoring mash pH. But even when cut at 3 or 4 to 1, my well water offers challenges that have driven me to use RO water. And all it required was our moving far enough from the spring water to make it not worth the drive to get it. And moving to a home with a well.

 

[Tribe Fan]

If you're anywhere near Medina / Wadsworth, that's why you're seeing similar water.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Fortunately for all of us, Weyermann has published its own primer that informs us that their typical lot strength batches of Sauermalz (acid malt), when added at a grist weight of 1%, will shift mash pH downward by 0.1 pH for most recipes. This sets a sound limit by which to test the validity of the OP's claim of 9.93 mL of lactic acid, as well as to test the general validity of any mash pH assistant software.

To aid in this, Kai Troester made the (measured) observation that ~1.263 ounces of acid malt are generally the acid equivalent of 1 mL of 88% lactic acid.

Another powerful tool which you can easily use to quickly assess the general validity (or invalidity) of the output advice of any mash pH software, all complements of Weyermann and Kai.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

If you're anywhere near Medina / Wadsworth, that's why you're seeing similar water.

The spring water I used so successfully came from 'Cherry Knoll Natural Spring Water' in Amherst, OH.

Highly recommended if this location is easily accessible to you.

As to our well water, I assessed it at 315 ppm alkalinity and 384 ppm bicarb via the simple use of a roughly $8 GH/KH test kit. Very close to your numbers. This from the KH part of the test kit. Are your values direct from Ward Lab?

Also (using the GH part of the kit) I came up with total hardness at 547, which (thanks to Kai Trosester) I've estimated to be due to about 153 ppm Ca++ and 40 ppm Mg++.

I asked for the detailed GH/KH method to be made into a sticky, with all due credit addressed to Kai, but A.J. nixed it, and (to date, subject to change) there seems to be little interest from anyone else in support of making it into a sticky.

 

[Tribe Fan]

I had the direct well and softened water tested by Ward. They are pretty much the same, but you can see the Na skyrocket at the expense of calcium and magnesium in the softened stuff. This was 2 years ago. a TDS meter today reads 350 for whatever that's worth.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

My TDS meter reads between about 812 and 876, pre and also post the softener unit. But who knows if it is accurate? It is only about a $7 TDS meter.

 

[Oginme]

A water softener works using cation exchange beads. The beads bond with the Calcium and Magnesium to remove those ions from the water. It replaces those ions with Sodium which is on the beads. When you back-flush the resin beads with a brine solution, you remove the Calcium and Magnesium and replace those with sodium from the concentrated salt water, thus repeating the cycle. So yes, your softened water will show more sodium content at the expense of the Ca and Mg.

 

[Tribe Fan]

Just wanted to report in here /brag. I just sampled an english pale ale first time using 1469 yeasts, and also first time using the primer, MME and a pH meter. This batch mashed at 5.4 which was the projected target. I would up adding CaCl, gypsum and acid malt to the recipe as a result of the process. Simple grain bill 85% MO, 6% oats and rice, 3% acid malt. EKG's and Saaz to 27 IBU.

This is the clearest and cleanest beer I've ever done. It was that way going into the fermenter, and is that way coming out. Beer is excellent. Malt, yeast and hops and that's it. It's only 12 days old and I'll probably never know what it tastes like after 30 days because it will be gone by then.

I nailed the fermentation on this one, but I was impressed with how clean and clear the wort was going in. This is the first excellent beer I've made since moving to Ohio well water.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Just wanted to report in here /brag. I just sampled an english pale ale first time using 1469 yeasts, and also first time using the primer, MME and a pH meter. This batch mashed at 5.4 which was the projected target. I would up adding CaCl, gypsum and acid malt to the recipe as a result of the process. Simple grain bill 85% MO, 6% oats and rice, 3% acid malt. EKG's and Saaz to 27 IBU.

This is the clearest and cleanest beer I've ever done. It was that way going into the fermenter, and is that way coming out. Beer is excellent. Malt, yeast and hops and that's it. It's only 12 days old and I'll probably never know what it tastes like after 30 days because it will be gone by then.

I nailed the fermentation on this one, but I was impressed with how clean and clear the wort was going in. This is the first excellent beer I've made since moving to Ohio well water.

Thanks for the great feedback!