Upcoming project: Mash Guidelines

Pricelessbrewing

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Part of our upcoming projects is to provide an overhaul of the mash guidelines, as it is in many ways the core of the recipe builder.

In order to provide the best brewing software on the market, we’ve outlined the following steps. The exact details and order are not set in stone, as we’re still in the planning stage. This project is one that I felt is strongly needed to support a wider breadth of brewing processes, and increase ease of use by letting the software do the work.


  • Reorganize the mash step properties into 1-2 rows per section per step,
    • one for water infusion properties ( water volume, infusion/strike temperature, infusion time, mash thickness). This will only be shown for any strike or infusion steps that change the mash thickness. The mash thickness and water volume will be intertwined, so you can either input 1.25 qt/lb, or 3.75 gal infusion volume. The corresponding changes will be calculated automatically.

    • one for mash properties (total mash volume, gravity, step temperature). This will be shown for every mash step type except sparge.
  • Truly calculated values will be disabled, such as strike/infusion temperature, total mash volume, and mash gravity. You will no longer be able to change the infusion temperature directly. If requested by the community, we may add an “unlock” toggle to override these calculated values manually.

  • Total Mash Volume will be shown in the recipe builder so you don't risk overflowing your mashtun. Particularly important in providing increased support for our BIAB users.

  • Improving volume calculations, aligning the quick water requirements, the recipe boil volumes, and the equipment profile more closely to eliminate discrepancies.

  • Increase support for multi-step mashes through variable mash thickness at each infusion or strike step, and multi-step infusion calculations directly in the mash guidelines.

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    • Several "Smart" features that will, through a user toggle, limit your water volumes to the recipe/equipment volumes so you're not setting your recipe up for more than your equipment says you should be using.

    • The smart sparge concept is to automatically set the final sparge step equal to the remaining water after all preceding mash and sparge steps. Similar to how the "add quick water requirements" behaves now, but will update automatically for any changes in the preceding steps.

      • This feature will disable the final sparge water volume, and automatically update it whenever changes are made to the total water volume, or infusion/strike volumes. Most fly sparge brewers will have this disabled, but I hope it will be of great benefit to no-sparge / full volume brewers, and batch sparge brewers in simplifying your workflow.

        • If you change the above 2nd infusion from 2.25 gallons, to 2.75 gallons, the sparge volume will change from 1.5 gallons to 1 gallon automatically.

        • If you delete the above 2nd infusion, the sparge water volume will increase to 3.75 gallons automatically.
      • With smart sparge enabled, the new “remaining” volume property at the bottom of the mash section will always be 0. As such it will likely not be shown when smart sparge is enabled for a cleaner UI.
    • The smart mash concept is to intuitively calculate, and limit all mash steps based on the equipment profile, and total water requirements.

      • This feature limits the total water allowed in any step to not exceed the total water needed based on the recipe, and the users equipment profile. This improves BIAB support, warns users from inputting extraneous volumes and helps to improve the importance of an accurate equipment profile.

        • If a user inputs 10 gallons, but only needs 7.5 gallons, then it should have a red warning shadow-box animation and the input changed to 7.5 gallons. When the setting is off, it will still have the warning display, but the value of 10 gallons will not change.

        • Similarly, if the user in the example in the picture tried to change 2.25 in the 2nd mash steps infusion volume to 4 gallons, it would change to 3.75 gallons as that's what's remaining after the above mash steps which steals the water volume from the sparge step below and sets it to zero.

        • Or correspondingly if they changed the 2nd steps mash thickness from 2 to 2.58 qt/lb, the mash thickness would automatically change to 2.5 due to the same limitations (7.5 gal * 4 / 12 = 2.5), and the water volume would have a warning box and change to 3.75.

    I hope you find these planned changes welcome. If you have any concerns, suggestions, or desired changes left off of the above list please do not hesitate to reply.

    Please keep related comments to the other projects in the corresponding threads.
 
I know this is a big change, but I truly believe this will be the best mash support available, intuitive and smart. Supporting all brewing processes.

All of the "smart" features will be up to the user to choose whether or not they will use them. But I hope that you do find them easy to use, and help to simplify your recipe design process. No matter your brewing method, whether it's full volume BIAB, BIAB with a sparge, full volume mashtun, mashtun with a batch sparge, or mashtun with a fly sparge. These will all be fully supported in a smart way to take the work off of you, and let the software handle things.
 
One of the things I"m most excited about is the seamless way we'll be able to use the functions. For example, right now to see the infusion temperatures/amounts, you look at the brew log or your mash steps. Having the mash guidelines helpful and intuitive will be such a great feature, and it will carry through to the water calculator seamlessly.
 
I like this idea! I was just starting to use the quick water requirements feature and enjoyed it! Will I be able t simply add a temperature step that doesn't include added water without quirking something else up?
 
I've mentioned it before but I'll mention it again. I still think one of the big features Brewer's Friend has yet to include in their brewing software is equipment profiles for all in one brewing systems, such as Robobrew, Anvil, Grainfather etc. All other brewing software out there includes these and at a lower price point. The annual fee for Brewer's Friend isn't much but it is higher than any other software out there that I have seen. These systems are becoming very popular and in my opinion BF is losing its competitive edge. The software I'm using right now is cheaper and can input my recipes and all brewing steps directly into my Grainfather and for $5 less annually. Granted, most all in ones out right now don't have Bluetooth connection like the Grainfather, but still, not including any equipment profiles is a miss. I know I'm no longer a supporting member so maybe my opinion no longer matters, but this was actually one of the deciding factors for me going with different software.

Something to think about perhaps...
 
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I know this is a big change, but I truly believe this will be the best mash support available, intuitive and smart. Supporting all brewing processes.
How will this work with new comers who haven't built an equipment profile yet?
How will it look for Extract Brewers?
Just curious...
 
@thunderwagn We do have a ticket for this in place right now. I'll bump it and bring it up again with the rest of the team. Also your input definitely still matters!

@Blackmuse

Good points of course. For new users, those not logged in, or without equipment profiles. Well have to add a fallback to use the recipes boil sizes, and standard grain absorption and no volume losses at mashtun/kettle.

For extract brewers, the mash guidelines section isn't used so it won't impact extract brewers at all. Partial mashes or extract with steeping grains still have grain absorption accounted for via the quick water requirements and the boil volume "calc" button will account for this shortly.
 
I like this idea! I was just starting to use the quick water requirements feature and enjoyed it! Will I be able t simply add a temperature step that doesn't include added water without quirking something else up?
Yes, if you want to do a step mash, that consists of a strike infusion, then raising the mash temp, then a sparge it would look like this.


If the first strike volume stays the same as the initial example with a thickness of 1.75 qt/lb, then the sparge volume will automatically increase to 3.75 gallons.

upload_2020-8-1_16-35-18.png
 
Forgot to note that the colored boxes are all for illustration.

The black boxes represent calculated variables that will be disabled, no user input for these.

The red boxes represent new or updated features.

The Blue boxes are all user inputs that drive the calculated values (and other blue boxes in the same step, or downward).
 
So do I need to input both thickness and volume, or entering one updates the other? Most of mine are full volume with some being a sparge/top up if it gets too thin. So I'd generally just enter the full volume and then add a sparge/top up step after eyeballing the thickness.
 
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So do I need to input both thickness and volume, or entering one updates the other? Most of mine are full volume with some being a sparge/top up if it gets too thin. So I'd generally just enter the full volume and then add a sparge/top up step after eyeballing the thickness.
It will be either Or.

If you do full volume, my recommended process would be to enable the smart features, then you can enter a large mash thickness or water volume. It will then update automatically to the maximum water volume for the recipe and equipment.

Ie you could enter a thickness of something like 3 qt/lb or a water volume of 10 gallons. It would update to 7.5 gallons and 2.5 qt/lb automatically.

Without the smart features, the two inputs will still be intertwined, so you can input 2.5 qt/lb, or 7.5 gallons and the other will update accordingly. If you enter 7.3 gallons for example instead, the "remaining" value at the bottom will show 0.2 gallons.
 
To support Thunderwagon's comments. I kind of don't understand why BF hasn't jumped on setting up equipment profiles for the all in ones (especially now that I have one). I don't think that it would require any programming updates it would just require a bit of research, and setting up a default to show up in a drop down list. I imagine that the manufacturers would be more than happy to provide the pertinent info, especially to get their names to show up more often. I subscribe to both BF, and the other BF (brewfather), planning my next few brews there, partly because they have a brewzilla profile preset, and I don't have to muck with it.
 
To support Thunderwagon's comments. I kind of don't understand why BF hasn't jumped on setting up equipment profiles for the all in ones (especially now that I have one). I don't think that it would require any programming updates it would just require a bit of research, and setting up a default to show up in a drop down list. I imagine that the manufacturers would be more than happy to provide the pertinent info, especially to get their names to show up more often. I subscribe to both BF, and the other BF (brewfather), planning my next few brews there, partly because they have a brewzilla profile preset, and I don't have to muck with it.

We are working on that right now, so I'm glad you brought that up! It requires a bit of development work, but it's coming as soon as we can release it.
We've had requests for Grainfather, Brewie (but I think that's defunct?), RoboBrew, and Brewzilla that I recall off the top of my head.
 
We are working on that right now, so I'm glad you brought that up! It requires a bit of development work, but it's coming as soon as we can release it.
We've had requests for Grainfather, Brewie (but I think that's defunct?), RoboBrew, and Brewzilla that I recall off the top of my head.
Could you add speidel braumeister 20L to the list.
 
Just curious, has there been any progress on the all in one equipment profiles?
 
Just curious, has there been any progress on the all in one equipment profiles?
Yes, there was a small hickup caught during tested but I believe it's been re-assigned to me to review yesterday. Hopefully soon!

If you're curious, you can see it on the beta sites equipment profile page.
 
Sorry, I don't know the link to the beta site
 

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