BrewCipher 3.41

One thing I noticed is that on the water tab, it has "Kettle Amount (g)" for the additions, but then speaks of "Sparge H20 Concentration (ppm)" in the resulting water area. Should the latter be changed to something like "Kettle/Boil" amount?

It seems like it shouldn't be linked to the sparge water, as the sparge water acidification recommendations for acid doesn't change based on what's input into the "Kettle Amount" salt additions now. It should, as putting 100g of extra calcium (whether from CaCl or CaSO4) should change the pH of the sparge water, thus changing the acidification recommendation, right? I don't know how difficult it would be to link sparge/kettle additions and the sparge acidification area, but changing terminology so that salts are only added to the mash and/or boil kettle and acid is the sole thing for acidifying sparge water would make everything consistent.

Thanks again for all the work, love having all of this information together instead of having 10 different calculators/programs open

Finally, as a request list for next time (unless I'm just missing this), an efficiency calculator would be awesome!

 

Thanks all around. Makes sense on the water calculations, and good point on pH, always forget that the calcium is reacting with something to lower the pH Missing the note under "Sparge H20 Concentration" serves me right for trying to make comments while in the middle of brewing and transferring!

Missed the OG/volume entry on the recipe tab, and will start using that.

Thanks as always!

 

Hey Vikeman,

So I have been using your sheet for a number of batches now. Overall I think it is great, it is my Go To sheet. I have a couple of comments. The first comment and I hope that you'll take it in the spirit it is given. For my taste the yellow is to glaring. The thing is that I often prepare my recipe during the week for the weekend, and the yellow doesn't look like any of the other sheets I might use at work so it stands out. Any other more muted color would be great, but that is just my opinion. I'd change it myself, but of course the sheet is protected.

Another change that I think it would be helpful to add the following info to the Brewday printme sheet, just sort of as a reference. ( I often write some of this info on the sheet after I print it. )

23.25 lbs Total Grain Bill
Boil off Rate 1.5 gal/hour
Total Preboil water volume 15.52 gallons
Total Post boil volume 10.25 gallons
Total volume to boil off 5.27 gallons
Calculated boil time 3.52 hours

My last comment has to do with Water calculations. I often use the calculator over at brewers friend, http://www.brewersfriend.com/water-chemistry/, to help me determine what to add. At the bottom it indicates what the flavor profile will be. Since I don't really know what I'm doing this is immensely helpful. I'm not sure how difficult it would be to incorporate something like that, but it would eliminate the extra step of going to a website to work out the salt additions. Also if there were a way to calculate suggested water additions to meet a profile that would be cool to.

Of course these are just ideas that I think would be helpful, but I'm pretty new to this so it may be info that no one else is interested in seeing. Thanks again for your work on this, even if you don't change anything else it is a great sheet.

 

Additional summary data on the brewsheet would be at least fine and possibly helpful. I don't mind the yellow entry cells and did also think that was kind of standard, but also would be fine with a change I suppose. I do use Libreoffice so I haven't been able to make much use of the water profiles.

 

As far as boil time: The boil time shown on the sheet is taken from the time entered from the recipe sheet, which I assume has more to do with hop additions than volume reduction. What I was looking for is calculated based on the boil off rate and the total amount on pre-boil wort. So if the collected wort is 15.5 gallons and the into the fermenter volume should be 11 gallons then you need to boil off 4 gallons at say 1.5 gallons per hour, so the boil time would be 2.67 hours. Maybe there is a better term for it.

Or am I misunderstanding how a brew day should go? I consistently have to boil for 2 or 3 hours to get my volume where I need it. It is always sort of a guessing game on timing my hop additions work with the volume reduction.

As far as the color I vote for a muted grey, but if that is just my preference then no worries, it may very well be the standard, I'm just not familiar with it.