heres a good question for you :-)

[tubby_shaw]

brewing software? this is getting way above my head now what does this mystical software do ?

It does lots of clever things that I can no longer be bothered to do by hand anymore
It will calculate strike heats based on your desired liquor /grist ratio, work out your efficiency, tell you how bitter your beer is likely to be, calculate OG and FG, work out what colour your beer is going to be and much more besides
There are free trials available on most and if you are a Mac user one of the forum members, steve_flack sell his own http://www.kentplacesoftware.com/
Other PC based versions to try are Beersmith, Promash and Suds, if you do a google search you will find the free trials

[ColinKeb]

hmm i will have a look at that later tonight , cheers

[guildofevil]

Maybe I'm being a little slow but all of the maths and calculators I can find (including ProMash) are for working out the initial strike water temperature. How can you work out how much boiling water you need to add to raise the temperature from 55C to 65C?

As I currently mash in an electric boiler, I have been raising the temperature with the kettle element, but I came a cropper doing this when I was using 50% wheat. There was so much starch in the liquor that I ended up with burnt on black stuff all over the element. I had to move the whole mash into a plastic bucket, remove the element and clean it in order to get it going again.

I will be moving over to an insulated mash tun anyway, so I will need to get this down sooner or later.

[tubby_shaw]

If you use the mash designer in ProMash to give an initial rest @ 55 C for 30 mins and then add a second step to raise to 65 C it will give you the volumes required

[oblivious]

How can you work out how much boiling water you need to add to raise the temperature from 55C to 65C.

This rest calculator may be of some use to you.

http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

[guildofevil]

I can't seem to get ProMash to do it.

I have entered the values for the fist step, no problems.

4.8Kg grain @ 18C with a ratio of 2.5l per Kg for a rest temp of 55 for 20 minutes and it worked it our to be 12l of water @ 61C. Fine.

I then added a second step, starting at 55 stopping at 65 with an infusion temperature of 99C, but the infusion amount remains 0. Am I doing something stupid here?

[guildofevil]

This rest calculator may be of some use to you.

http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

That's a great littel tool. Does the job, no muss no fuss.

Thanks oblivious.

[ColinKeb]

just to let you know, i have just tried the chimay which is only about 27 days old so far and its very nice quite potent , strong flavour and a bit like leffe brune really , which is fine by me still a bit cloudy/slight haze though . i will transfer it to a corny later and let it rest for another week or so (we'll see) hopefully it will have cleared a bit by then.