Announcing the release of 'Mash Made Easy' version 9.90

[Silver_Is_Money]

Mash Made Easy version 9.90 is now available for free download on my website. MME is a mash pH adjustment assistant spreadsheet, with an assortment of added accessory/utility spreadsheet calculators. There are both Metric/EBC and Pounds/Lovibond (standard, from my perspective) versions.

Change from version 9.85: A correction was made for 'Acid Malt' to bring Grist Component drop-down entered 'Acid Malt's' acid strength in line with user settings made to the "Grist Buffer Multiplier" value, as suggested (urged, recommended) by and for the users specific mill gap. The normal acid malt output (I.E., acid malt as seen among the other acid choices) is not affected by this change.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

Just a question, when selecting mash only for mineral additions and when no additions are added, why are the finished batch amounts shown as lower than the levels in my source water?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Just a question, when selecting mash only for mineral additions and when no additions are added, why are the finished batch amounts shown as lower than the levels in my source water?

It appears that you are both mashing and sparging with naturally mineralized source water, whereby you should answer "mash and sparge" rather than "mash only". I would need to see a snapshot, but in a simulation I just ran that's the way I see it. If you select "mash only" for minerals in the water, MME then presumes that you are sparging with distilled or RO water which is mineral free, whereby the mineral free sparge water dilutes and reduces your overall water mineralization.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

Ah, ok. Then i'll change to mash and sparge and recalculate a bit.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

Oh, and does the sparge PH adjustment tab calculate for mineral additions in sparge water?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Oh, and does the sparge PH adjustment tab calculate for mineral additions in sparge water?

There is no correlation of significant relevance. Only the minerals Calcium and Magnesium within the mash proper affect mash pH, and they do this via reacting with malt phosphates within the mash step to release H+ (acid) ions. By the time of the sparge most to all of this reaction is over and done with.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

What needs to be addressed for the sparge water is to acidify it to about 5.5 pH whereby to bring sparge water Alkalinity into control.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

Ok. Sounds reasonable, the only thing I could wish for (in some future version maybe) is the option to use tap water for mash and sparge and still add all minerals in the mash. I brew rather small batches(about 2.5 gallons in freedom units) and adding it all in the mash makes measuring a lot easier, plus it eliminates an extra step to potentially forget about during brewday. Other than that small detail it seems nice, clean easy understandable interface, no unnecessary over complicated mumbo jumbo that most often only confuses. Just the important parts that actually matter and are within most homebrewers ability to actually have any control over. Good work!

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Ok. Sounds reasonable, the only thing I could wish for (in some future version maybe) is the option to use tap water for mash and sparge and still add all minerals in the mash. I brew rather small batches(about 2.5 gallons in freedom units) and adding it all in the mash makes measuring a lot easier, plus it eliminates an extra step to potentially forget about during brewday. Other than that small detail it seems nice, clean easy understandable interface, no unnecessary over complicated mumbo jumbo that most often only confuses. Just the important parts that actually matter and are within most homebrewers ability to actually have any control over. Good work!

I believe that I have fully addressed your concerns, and I've come up with Mash Made Easy version 9.95 whereby to hopefully outright solve them. So far I only have only a "standard" (pounds/gallons) version of 9.95 and it surely needs some testing and tire kicking before being released. If you are interested, I would like to have you PM (private message) me, whereby I will point you to the MME 9.95 testing version. If it satisfies, I will modify the Metric version accordingly, and publicly release both standard and Metric. I ask only that you do not share or publish 9.95 on your own.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

A quick update: Both @Erik the Anglophile and myself are presently Beta testing MME version 9.95 and kicking the tires. @Erik the Anglophile is testing the Metric version and I'm testing the standard version.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Latest update: We are testing MME 9.95_ Beta3 right now, and it is starting to feel like a release candidate, so if no further bugs crop up 9.95 should be released soon.