What is the progress on the mash model?

[sixhotdogneck]

I know I wrung your necks a while back about this whole thing but is there finally an accurate mash model out there incorporated into a user friendly program or is it more of the same by-guess-and-by-gosh.

Most of the spreadsheets I've seen look like something Sears did when Roebuck wasn't looking.

 

[day_trippr]

Oh boy. Given what I've been reading lately you're wading close to the edge there

 

[ajdelange]

There is, and has been for a couple of years now, an accurate model. But it is not, AFAIK, to be found in a 'friendly' program nor is there a sufficiency of malt data out there to support it for practical use. Nor do I think at this point there will ever be a friendly calculator which uses it because it has become evident that use of such a calculator demands understanding of principles which home brewers simply cannot grasp. Now I did point one guy at a robust calculator and he came back with thanks and his answer in 20 minutes so I guess it was friendly for him. But this is most unusual.

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

After the New Year I plan on titration testing grains I get from The Brewers Apprentice. I already have mash pH results from recipes I've brewed several times already using their grains.

 

[kh54s10]

I'd like to know, what are you talking about?

 

[ajdelange]

Which one of us?

 

[kh54s10]

Any.. What mash model? What is a mash model?

 

[balrog]

 

[Big Monk]

Any.. What mash model? What is a mash model?

It references what we have been referring to as Generation II pH estimation software.

Generation I software would be color based models like Brun' Water who use malt color as a proxy for it's actual acidity. It also generally models the entire acid/base system of the mash based on approximations.

Generation II software aims to use actual titration data for malt acidity to eliminate the color proxy and uses the method of charge conservation to more accurately model the acid/base characteristics of the mash.

 

[kh54s10]

Thanks, haven't gotten to pH. IMO my beers are usually as good or better than mid priced commercial craft beers so I have not seen the need for it yet.

Also pinching pennies now so a decent meter is not in the near future - so no need for the software.

 

[ajdelange]

If you have a meter you don't need the software. If you don't, good software can, fed good information about malt and water, tell you what a pH meter will likely read and, therefore, to some extent, replace it. A good brewer will use software to plan his brews and a pH meter to check on what the software told him.

There is no good software. Actually there is but there is no source of good malt information to feed it and so it is pretty much as worthless as the bad software.