CyclingCraig

Recipes 

I'm confused .

Over the weekend I brewed the "Black Widow Porter" from Jamils' and Palmers' "Brewing Classic Styles" book page 156-157.

I did the All-Grain option.

When I plugged the recipe into Beersmith I get an Estimated OG of 1.073, BUT the book says "1.064" for OG.

I have my Brewhouse Eff set at 70%(Which is about where I am for my system). I also plugged it into TastyBrew and got the same 1.073? So what am I missing here? I though in the book he states he uses 70% Mash Eff?

I Actually ended up at 1.064 OG, so I hit what the recipe called for in the book? ?

Recipe Ingredients:
11.75# american 2-row
1.5# Munich
1# Crystal 40
.75# Chocolate
.5# Black Patent

CyclingCraig

Recipes 

I think I was screwing up the Batch size..

the book uses 6 gals left in the kettle after the boil, and pre-boil volume of 7 gals.

That was throwing everything out of wack for me?

Beerthoven

Recipes 

What is your batch size set at in BeerSmith? I think Jamil ends his boil with 6 gallons in the kettle if I remember correctly. It says somewhere in the book what their assumptions are. If your batch size is different then that could account for the discrepancy you see.

I recently brewed that recipe and it is wonderful. I will definately brew it again this year. Luckily, my wife does not like porters, so I get it all to myself.

EDIT - Ah, I see you figured it out.

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Kegged: #89 California Common

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I use secondaries!

Evan!

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I was also under the impression that JZ assumed a relatively low mash efficiency...?

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Bobby_M

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I don't have the book but I know his recipes well and he assumes 6 gallons finished batch and 70% efficiency. You can input the recipe as a 6gallon with all the same ingredients and then scale the ingredient by dropping your batch size. I know how to do this in BTP, but I don't have Beersmith. I assume it can do this for you. If not, build the bill based on percentage of total and play around until you get the right OG.

You might actually find that some of the really odd grain bill increments flatten out for you so like instead of .6 pounds of whatever, you'll get .5.

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CyclingCraig

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Yeah... It's that darn "Batch Size" thing in Beersmith..

I read on the Beersmith Forums that, "Batch size" is the amount into the primary.

I usually shoot for 5.25 gals into my primary, so that is what I enter into beersmith. I leave about .5 - .75 Gal back in the kettle due to trub/cold break.

I don't think Beersmith takes trub/kettle losses into account when calculating efficencies. so it thinks my post boil volume is 5.25 gals, when actually it is really like 5.75 - 6 gals. So if I put 6 gal as my batch size, it doesn't calculate the bottleing suger correctly., it uses the 6 gals as my volume, not the actual 5.25 that ended up in my primary(really 5 gal that end up in my bottleing bucket).

Does any of this make sense, cause I just talked myself into a circle!!

Mutilated1

Recipes 

I bought that book last week. So far I'm really enjoying it, the information he gives about different ingredients is pretty good stuff especially for a beginner like myself who is still figuring out what everything tastes like.

Beerthoven

Recipes 

Beersmith does take kettle trub and chiller loses into account when calculating efficiency, but only if you enter a non-zero value for that in your equipment profile.

It sounds to me like you should enter 5.25 gallons as the "final volume" and 0.75 gallons as "kettle trub and chiller losses". Then I think Beersmith will know what to do. You do this in the equipment profile view.

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Primary/Secondary: #90 American IPA, #91 Brown Ale

Kegged: #89 California Common

Planned: Dusseldorf Altbier, American Wheat

I use secondaries!

CyclingCraig

Recipes 

Thanks Beerthoven, I will check my numbers for my equipment when I get home.

For some reason I don't think work would like me installing Beersmith on my work computer

Kaiser

Recipes 

Quote:

Originally Posted by CyclingCraig I read on the Beersmith Forums that, "Batch size" is the amount into the primary.

Batch size is what you want it to be. If you see brewhouse efficiency as the efficiency into the boil kettle (as it is actually defined in many other sources), set batch size to your post boil volume. If you want brewhouse efficiency to be the efficiency into the fermenter, set batch size to your expected fermenter volume.

I set batch size to the post boil volume. Simply because the brewhouse efficiency should not be affected by how much wort I leave in the kettle when transferring to the fermenter. It should only cover mashing and lautering losses.

Kai

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