In a fit of tax time procrastination, I have updated my residual alkalinity spreadsheets on my webpage, http://howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-3.html
Version 2.0 improves the user interface and adds (gasp) instructions! mg:
It also (unfortunately) fixes several small errors I was unaware of until Dave Louw and Soren Tygesen pointed them out. Thanks!
The new version also incorporates dilution with distilled water.
Have at it and I hope it is helpful.
Good Brewing,
John

Thanks very much for that, John. That version 1.0 spreadsheet has been a great help in dialing in my beers over the last year or so. Now I'll have to get to work moving my little personalizations (collection of water profiles and such) from the old version over to the new one!

That spreadsheet and the nomograph are well worth the price of the book, in case there is some brewer out there under a rock who does not have one yet.

Doh!
Error in dilution caught by Danny Williams. And typos by Hullabrew.
Version 2.1 now up.
John

Version 2.2 is now up!
Fixed a couple cell references in the sparge water acidification that I had previously missed, but I think this is truly correct now.
Thanks Everyone for finding these.
Good Brewing,
John

I'm waiting for 2.4. . .

One of the primary inputs to this sheet is the expected SRM of the recipe. I plug my recipe in to StrangeBrew or ProMash and it gives me a number. I plug that number in to the spreadsheet and go on my merry way.

I just realized tonight, though, that the color changes drastically based on the gravity of the recipe and I suspect that the water calcs should not change.

For instance, if I were to mash some pale malt with 1.2qt/lb for a Scottish 60/- I would have an SRM of about 3. If I mash the same malt with the same ratio of water but make a barleywine, the color calculates out to around 10. That's a pretty big swing, and it seems to me the water adjustments should be proportionally the same for both of these.

So which SRM is the right one to use for these calculations?

Remember, this spreadsheet is all about arm waving. You use the Color of the final beer to estimate how much alkalinity is required for the mash pH. Stronger beers of the same color would have more aciidity and therefore coul tolerate a higher RA, than a weaker beer.
I use the Morey calculation for color btw.
Using the weighted average of Lovibond of the malts is not recommended because of the way that SRM is actually measured. Dark beers have to be heavily diluted to allow light to pass thru them for the spectrophotometric test. Again, I use the Morey method. I guess I should have mentioned that in the Instructions...
John

Wow!


Personally, I use the wankelman calcualtions for this.