Haka! The Herald

mrlard
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Joined: Mon Nov 14, 2011 11:40 am

Re: Haka! The Herald

Post by mrlard »

vacant wrote:Boil off isn't a percentage of boil volume.
thats getting a bit anally retentive for me - if all things are equal multiplying final brew length by 110% and adding your dead space and hops loss gives me the right answer every time

granted it changes with brew length and how many KW of energy you want to stick in your boiler - but you got to start somewhere and 10% for a 23litre brew on a 2.2kw element is fair.
Last edited by mrlard on Tue Oct 30, 2012 3:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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periolus
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Haka! The Herald

Post by periolus »

Paul's comment was in the spirit of being helpful and informative; I hadn't inferred it as anything otherwise. Loss to boiler confuses a lot of people and I could do with nailing the actual loss ASAP.
Thst's one advantage of a plastic boiler, as you can see it / mark it off each brew.
FV1: EMPTY
FV2: EMPTY
Conditioning: NOWT
Drinking:Countdown Conundrum - Best Bitter; Haka! The Herald - Pacific IPA
Planning: San Francisco 4.9er - California Common; Event Horizon - Robust Porter; Cold Dead Hand - American IPA
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periolus
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Haka! The Herald

Post by periolus »

Okay, what was going to be a brew at 6.3% and 58 IBU'S could now be 7.7% and 67 IBU, based on OG of 1070 stopping at a predicted 1012.
FV1: EMPTY
FV2: EMPTY
Conditioning: NOWT
Drinking:Countdown Conundrum - Best Bitter; Haka! The Herald - Pacific IPA
Planning: San Francisco 4.9er - California Common; Event Horizon - Robust Porter; Cold Dead Hand - American IPA
mrlard
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Joined: Mon Nov 14, 2011 11:40 am

Re: Haka! The Herald

Post by mrlard »

If everything is to high way not dilute it back a bit?
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Bimster
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Re: Haka! The Herald

Post by Bimster »

periolus wrote:Paul's comment was in the spirit of being helpful and informative; I hadn't inferred it as anything otherwise. Loss to boiler confuses a lot of people and I could do with nailing the actual loss ASAP.
Thst's one advantage of a plastic boiler, as you can see it / mark it off each brew.
I also end up with more boil off than Beersmith predicts. To be honest, it is slightly annoying but the beer is usual ok so I just roll with it.

Nailing the exact amount would be nice but I guess my boiler is more vigourous than it needs to be once it hits the rolling boil. Not bad for an 1800 watt element!

Anyway, now you've done this brew, do I get my kit back?
James

BJCP Certified Judge
Capn Ahab
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Re: Haka! The Herald

Post by Capn Ahab »

Bimster wrote:I also end up with more boil off than Beersmith predicts. To be honest, it is slightly annoying but the beer is usual ok so I just roll with it.

Nailing the exact amount would be nice but I guess my boiler is more vigourous than it needs to be once it hits the rolling boil. Not bad for an 1800 watt element!
I would advise not using beersmith as it is pretty difficult to get all the settings and parameters in line with your actual set up until you actually know what to expect from your set up. In my experience this means making incremental tweaks and changes to the settings, but still always finding myself not hitting the numbers exactly as planned; and when you mess up volume or gravity or both, your bitterness calculations will be out too.

As soon as I started doing all the brewing calculations on paper I started hitting the exact gravity and volume, and the only time I am ever slightly out is when I have underestimated efficiency (on high gravity beers usually). The value of this can't be overestimated IMO, as you can then work solely on tweaking your recipes, confident that nothing weird or unexpected will happen.

I now use beersmith purely as a recipe database.

All the calculations are well set out in Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels which I can lend to people. The hop utilisation calculation is closer to Tinseth rather than Rager, but this doesn't matter too much as long as you're consistently using the same utilisation factors (so you get to know what 40 IBU in a 1.054 beer tastes like). The book is pretty dry though, and sent me to sleep the first few times I tried to read it.

I can show anyone who is interested the different formulae and how to use them, but in my experience the first one to get to grips with is hitting target volume.

First up is your boiler calibrated for volume? It needs to be.

Work backwards from your target volume in FV:
Say 20 litres

Add a couple of litres for hop and trub loss (give or take depending on the amount of hops you use):
22 litres

Divide by 0.96 for cooling shrinkage:
22.92 litres

Then it gets a bit tricky as you need to initially make a guess as to your boil off rate. 10 % per hour is a good place to start, though I find mine is usually 11.5 %. If you get it wrong the first time, then tweak it subsequently until you're bang on.

Anyway, to get the evaporation factor:
1-(boil off rate/60 x boil length)

So with 10 % boil off and a 75 min boil:
evaporation factor = 1-(0.1/60x75) = 0.875

Then, remember your 22.92 litres? Divide that by your evap factor:
22.92/0.875 = 26.19 litres

So pre-boil volume = 26.19 litres


Trust me, start off doing this and you will soon get to know your kit inside out.
Eat sh*t or die trying
Capn Ahab
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Re: Haka! The Herald

Post by Capn Ahab »

Oh yeah, Ray Daniels' calculations are all in US Imperial, but I have converted them all to metric.

Much easier.
Eat sh*t or die trying
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periolus
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Re: Haka! The Herald

Post by periolus »

Bimster wrote:
I also end up with more boil off than Beersmith predicts. To be honest, it is slightly annoying but the beer is usual ok so I just roll with it.

Nailing the exact amount would be nice but I guess my boiler is more vigourous than it needs to be once it hits the rolling boil. Not bad for an 1800 watt element!

Anyway, now you've done this brew, do I get my kit back?
Yes you do! We actually go away for 3 days tomorrow, but am back Saturday. If you are out tomorrow at work and would like it back before then, I could always drop it with Taz if he is around. Let me know ; )
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Bimster
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Location: Generally Bristol

Re: Haka! The Herald

Post by Bimster »

Thanks Mark,

Yeah, I realised it is all wrong so went back to basics of using my experience of my setup!

I like the simplicity of the boil off calc though, might try that for my next brew.
James

BJCP Certified Judge
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I_used_to_brew
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Re: Haka! The Herald

Post by I_used_to_brew »

Whatever some people may think of Graham Wheeler, I've always found "Beer Engine" to give me the correct volumes (http://www.practicalbrewing.co.uk/main/ ... eerengine/) and that is without fiddling the default settings. It is free and very easy to use.

I don't use beersmiff any more and I might as well give the licence to someone who wants a headache :)
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