Best software for biab

[sbond10]

Just wondering what's everyone's opinions on the best free biab software.
I've currently being playing with biabacus but it's concerning me saying I need over 40 litres of water for a 23 litre brew. Now the volume doesn't bother me as I'm getting a 70 litre pan it's the fact I have 23 litre fermenter. This was for a standard 5 % pale ale brew can you really lose 17 litres of water ?

[slimmrock]

The grains soak up a lot, the hops soak up a bit, you'll boil off a lot over 90mins, and you'll have some dead space in your boiler, biabacus has always been fairly spot on for me

[sbond10]

Fair enough just thought I'd query if 40 litres was a reasonable amount for a 23 litres brew

[TonySan]

Whatever software you use, you'll need to tailor it for your setup. For my first ever brew I got 24L of beer with starting with 35L of water for a 5% beer using BrewMate. I then tailored the various options for losses and grain absorption etc. to be more accurate the next time.

[AnthonyUK]

Fair enough just thought I'd query if 40 litres was a reasonable amount for a 23 litres brew

For a regular beer with 4-5kg of grain then 35l is closer for me as I don't sparge.
I use Beersmith (mobile).

[daf]

Yeah I start with 35litres, after a good squeeze I lose about 2 litre to the grains, leaving 33l for the boil. I aim to get about 25l in the FV.

I've never even calibrated my measuring stick or pot, to be frank I can't be arsed.

[windrider]

BIABacus figures are usually pretty accurate and a good base to start from. After your first few brews you'll get an idea of your equipment and tailor the efficiencies to that. If you need any help looking over your completed sheet send me a PM it can be daunting to begin with.

[sbond10]

Cheers wind rider will do

[DrD]

Biabacus is fairly accurate on my setup with default setting, although I lose less water to the grain as I squeeze the bag like it owes me money. Most things are adjustable but if you crack the write protection on the spreadsheet then everything is adjustable.

I also hate the way that you need to enter a gravity/IBU and the amounts are scaled to a recipe - that was the first to go after unlocking it, soooo much better when you can just enter your ingredients list and tweak things manually.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

Where do you get biabacus? I see references to it a lot but it doesn't show up on searches much

[Linus]

Where do you get biabacus? I see references to it a lot but it doesn't show up on searches much

http://www.biabrewer.info/