Water Calcs - Where I have gone wrong - Equipment Profile

[AHarper]

I have tried to use the Quick Water Requirements values accessible in the Builder Mash Guidelines section and have found the values impossible to achieve so have generally ignored what they say and plodded on regardless matching what I could to my equipment. I have just found out where I have been going wrong and am surprised I hadn't noticed it earlier.

Viewing the Quick Water Requirements gives:

My big problem is my kettle only holds 24 liters (allowing space for avoiding boil overs!) My Mash Tun does accommodate 30 Litres though - that is why I put that value in the field.

The problem is there is nowhere for the system to know this as there is not a field in the Equipment Profile to enter this.

Unless I am missing something somewhere how do you account for this situation? To make the current system work I have to downsize my mash tun volume - I haven't tried this yet so we shall see what effect this has but I suspect I will get some sort of warning - well I hope so anyway.

If the system doesn't know all the values how can it work out the answer - it currently assumes you have a kettle big enough to handle the resultant wort. To adjust the Batch Size in the builder seems to be AFTER the event of working out Quick water requirements - or does it?

Would an extra field in the Equipment Profile to insert Kettle Volume help things? It would help me understand the calculation better if I knew the system knew all the limitations.

-

 

[AHarper]

If you adjust the Recipe Builder BATCH SIZE aimed at KETTLE then it seems that Sparge Water requirement is adjusted accordingly but you can still get a BOIL size greater than the kettle will hold. You have to iteratively adjust the batch size until everything fits.... If only the calculator did all that for you - it has all the other values.

My fault for having a small kettle I suppose. Mrs H do you hear this?

 

[Pricelessbrewing]

Thanks for reaching out as always Alan!

We already have a ticket in place to add kettle volume to the list of equipment properties, it's definitely needed. At that point there will be a warning whenever the preboil volume exceeds the kettle volume.

To actually resolve this issue, we need an explicit boil section where you can add top off volumes, otherwise as you said there's not really anyway to simultaneously hit your intended batch size, but also avoid exceeding the kettle volume.

 

[AHarper]

Thanks for reaching out as always Alan!

We already have a ticket in place to add kettle volume to the list of equipment properties, it's definitely needed. At that point there will be a warning whenever the preboil volume exceeds the kettle volume.

To actually resolve this issue, we need an explicit boil section where you can add top off volumes, otherwise as you said there's not really anyway to simultaneously hit your intended batch size, but also avoid exceeding the kettle volume.

I noticed somethine else Mark @Pricelessbrewing It would be helpful if the Quick Water Requirements screen - the one you can PRINT from also has the Recipe mentioned in the Header e.g. If you print this out for records then it would help to associate the details with the recipe you call it from.

 

[Pricelessbrewing]

Where's the laugh emojis again?

That's a good idea though, we're working on QWR right now so should be added to the next update.