trying to learn Mash Made Easy on an Irish Red Ale recipe - some puzzling #'s

[twd000]

I have used Beersmith and Brunwater in the past but I wanted to try Mash Made Easy because it is the only one I know of that provides a "goal-seek" function to recommend salt additions rather than guess-and-iterate.

I entered my tap water profile from my Ward Labs test on the Source Water tab. I do a full-volume no-sparge BIAB, so no sparge water or dilution water needed.

I have a simple Irish Red Ale recipe that I've entered in BeerSmith for comparison

Two things confuse me so far - MME is estimating I need only 1.73 mL of 88% lactic acid to hit a mash pH of 5.4, which seems way too low. BeerSmith esimtates 5 mL (I fix the known BeerSmith error by entering 140% for lactic acid concentration)

The other thing that looks weird is MME estimates that 2.91 oz of 5% AA East Kent Goldings will only contribute 1.09 IBUs during a 30 minute boil of 9 gallons of wort. BeerSmith estimate 25 IBU which is what the recipe calls for. Why is m result so low?

Otherwise the salts recommended to achieve the "Malty, Medium" profile are
1.77g CaSO4
6.72g CaCl
1.63g MgSO4
1.36g NaHCO3

 

[hopjuice_71]

With the IBUs you entered in 2.91 grams, not ounces, so the IBUs seem to compute for me.

 

[twd000]

oops! good catch on the grams --> ounces

Any idea on why only 1.73 mL of lactic acid to achieve pH of 5.4? I notice that it lists lactic, phosphoric, acid malt, citric acid, CRS but I assume it's considering them as alternatives, not adding them all to reduce the pH, right?

 

[CodeSection]

oops! good catch on the grams --> ounces

Any idea on why only 1.73 mL of lactic acid to achieve pH of 5.4? I notice that it lists lactic, phosphoric, acid malt, citric acid, CRS but I assume it's considering them as alternatives, not adding them all to reduce the pH, right?

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but it appears your "grains quantity" listed for the Caramel 40 is not correct. It shows "0-Jan". I don't know how the sheet was able to calculate with that there. Maybe I'm missing something.

PLUS, I would download his latest version 8.35. You will see in that version the "grist buffer" has been changed to .70 and the "% Log Base 10 Mash pH" changed to 40%.

Correct, those are choices....do NOT add all of them. Just choose one. Personally, I just use the 88% lactic acid recommendation.

 

[twd000]

yeah I noticed the cell formatted as a date. Not sure how that happened. Right-click>Format Cells is disabled in the spreadsheet, but I was able to copy and paste over the value with 0.5 from another cell. It didn't change the lactic acid calc.

Just downloaded v8.35 and punched in my recipe there. I'm now getting 3.43 mL lactic acid, which still seems bit low, but more reasonable. I guess I can mash with this and test to see if it's more accurate than BeerSmith with my 140% lactic hack.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Maybe @Silver_Is_Money can comment.

 

[CodeSection]

yeah I noticed the cell formatted as a date. Not sure how that happened. Right-click>Format Cells is disabled in the spreadsheet, but I was able to copy and paste over the value with 0.5 from another cell. It didn't change the lactic acid calc.

Just downloaded v8.35 and punched in my recipe there. I'm now getting 3.43 mL lactic acid, which still seems bit low, but more reasonable. I guess I can mash with this and test to see if it's more accurate than BeerSmith with my 140% lactic hack.

To me, that doesn't seem low at all. I guess it depends upon one's perspective. I have been using MME for a couple of years now and it has always been accurate. At the beginning, I too, questioned why there are differences with other programs and @Silver_Is_Money suggested I just try it out and make the recommended addition and then decide. I never looked back and continue to use MME.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I just plugged this into my testing version of MME 8.40 (see new toys in lower right, I'm always trying something new...).

I noticed that Roasted Malt should have been selected as Roasted Barley (there are slight output differences between them).

I guessed at the weight where I could only see the amazingly odd "0-Jan" in the image above.

Testing version 8.40 indicates a need for 3.6 mL of 88% Lactic Acid. Not much different from 3.43 mL.

I can only speculate that the software you are comparing it to (which is always a bad thing to do, as it isn't intended to mimic anyone else's software, but rather it is intended to be accurate) defaults to a base malt DI_pH value of around 5.70, which would naturally demand more acid to bring the mash to pH 5.4.

I also noticed that you applied a water profile that was intended for distilled or RO water (see disclaimer on the profiles sheet) on top of your source water. MME took it in stride, but the profile is in need of adjustment due to the minerals and alkalinity already present within your source water.

What specific base malt are you using?

Some scaling to fit your screen might be in order for each sheet. Once you set them and save, the sheets should better fit your screen. I use LibreOffice, but I presume that Excel permits size scaling individually for each sheet.

Overall not bad for your first crack at MME. It gets easier once you've used it a bit more.

 

[CodeSection]

@Silver_Is_Money, I just tried downloading to the 8.40 version and it shows 8.35-1. So you eliminated "IBUs" and "BU:GU Ratio" fields and replaced them with the new fields...

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

@Silver_Is_Money, I just tried downloading to the 8.40 version and it shows 8.35-1. So you eliminated "IBUs" and "BU:GU Ratio" fields and replaced them with the new fields...

Yes, along with the potential for some other minor tweaks. 8.40 is still undergoing a bit of testing. I've been rapid firing the MME updates of late, only to occasionally find that a tweak in one area of the spreadsheet corrupts something (often minor, but I will not accept even minor corruptions) in another area, thus demanding another revision, and this can go on and on, and so-on and so-on... I also realize that my rapid updates tend to disgruntle many end users. Early on I about had my Alpha and Beta testers ready to string me up due to rapid firing revisions out to them.

IBU's and BU:GU still appear on the IBU's sheet, and I felt they were really not needed in duplicate on the main sheet. It should be fun watching how added Ca and Mg containing minerals work to bring down the mash pH, while also watching how added alkalinity raises the mash pH. "What if" scenarios are more intuitive when you can instantly see what they are doing behind the scenes (because they are no longer behind the scenes). The most fun comes from watching Ca(OH)2 both raise and lower the mash pH. It's two OH- ions raise the mash pH, and its single Ca++ ion lowers mash pH at the same time (in a Kolbach way). Stay tuned for the release of version 8.40.

 

[RPh_Guy]

For what it's worth, I'm pretty gruntled.

 

[hopjuice_71]

For what it's worth, I'm pretty gruntled.

Me too. Pretty much switching over entirely. Kettle pH tab is extra helpful.

 

[twd000]

thanks for taking a run with my numbers. I got mine to match your screenshots and I'm OK with 3.6 mL lactic.
re: specific base malt - I don't buy bulk malt, just get recipes built at my LHBS. I can ask what brand they use next time if it makes my results more accurate

re: "I also noticed that you applied a water profile that was intended for distilled or RO water (see disclaimer on the profiles sheet) on top of your source water. MME took it in stride, but the profile is in need of adjustment due to the minerals and alkalinity already present within your source water."

Perhaps a brief workflow would help me here. I though I was to select the desired profile (Malty medium in this case) in the Water Profiles tab, then paste the 5 minerals back into the Mash pH tab, "Mash Water Mineral Additions". Is there a third step? What "tweaking post copy and paste" should I be doing?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Perhaps a brief workflow would help me here. I though I was to select the desired profile (Malty medium in this case) in the Water Profiles tab, then paste the 5 minerals back into the Mash pH tab, "Mash Water Mineral Additions". Is there a third step? What "tweaking post copy and paste" should I be doing?

Since you are not using RO or distilled water with zero or very nearly so mineral content across the board (as is called for by the MME "cut and paste" profiles as specified on the profiles page), the best suggestion I can offer is to first apply the "malty/medium" profile to a base of 100% distilled (such as for switching to the secondary water source at 100% on the "water" page), then write down (or ballpark memorize) the mineral valuations derived from it, and then switch back to your 100% primary water source (or a blend of primary and secondary), and lastly try to manipulate the mineral values on the top right of the main page so as to come as close as you can to the "malty/medium" profile as you witnessed it applied to RO or distilled. Please let me know if this works out for you, as if not, I can be of further assistance as needed. Lastly (for now, until you have had a go at what I've written here), I can offer that getting generally close on mineral valuations is sufficient, and there is no real magic that can be derived from a specific profile such that it will transform a poorly processed beer into a spectacular beer. Process and technique are highly vital parts of brewing success.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

If anything must be jettisoned from the "profile" supplied mineralization levels as applied to distilled water (once you apply your water atop the profile), the first thing to sacrifice (as in eliminate) would be "Baking Soda", followed by "Epsom Salt". For a batch that requires acidification, baking soda is generally not your friend. It will merely increase the need for acid. The rest of the changes will likely be to reduce Gypsum and CaCl2, as your source water is already bringing quantities of these (as well as alkalinity) along with it. Chloride is a big part of the malty profile, so try to retain it, or even go higher a bit vs. the profile provided valuations.

 

[twd000]

ah, OK. I was hoping there was a "goal-seek" function that would get me close to the desired profile with non-RO water.

if I run the analysis with 100% RO water and a Malty Medium target, I get a Finished Batch Mineralization of:
Chloride: 80
Sulfate: 40
Sodium: 9.2
Calcium: 55.4
Mag: 4.0
Sulfate:Cl ratio: 0.5:1

If I manually twiddle the minerals on top of my tap water, and settle on 2 grams Gypsum and 3 grams CaCl2, I get a result of:
Chloride: 80.7
Sulfate: 39.6
Sodium: 17
Calcium: 82.7
Mag: 6.0
Sulfate:Cl ratio: 0.49:1

so the widest miss off the mark was high Calcium, but maybe that's not a problem? How did I do?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I'd say you did perfect! Those mineral levels look fine to me. A little more calcium is generally beneficial. Calcium won't likely impart a noticeable flavor until it gets above about 125-150 ppm. UK brewers will potentially laugh at this upper limit range, as sometimes they really crank up the calcium.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

A convenient thing that I do is save each recipe within Mash Made Easy as its own file under the recipe name, and I maintain all of my recipes within a recipes folder.

 

[twd000]

What is the rough breakpoint color range for Light/Medium/Dark?

I'm liking this spreadsheet so far.

The only thing it's missing, to replace BeerSmith for me, is the ability to scale recipes. I brew a weird in-between batch size of 8 gallons so it's nice to have an easy way to scale grain and hops to match the target gravity and IBUs.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

What is the rough breakpoint color range for Light/Medium/Dark?

I'm liking this spreadsheet so far.

The only thing it's missing, to replace BeerSmith for me, is the ability to scale recipes. I brew a weird in-between batch size of 8 gallons so it's nice to have an easy way to scale grain and hops to match the target gravity and IBUs.

YMMV, but for me Medium is roughly 11-12 SRM to 20-21 SRM.