Has anyone successfully set up BeerSmith for BIAB+dunk sparge?

BeerSmith is wonderfully powerful. BeerSmith is very inflexible and I can't for the life of me figure out how to set it all up so I actually my water targets, especially temperature. Mashing with 4 gallons at X temp to hit 152 degrees is very different than mashing with 7 gallons at X temp to hit 152 degrees.

Any thoughts? It either assumes you're doing full volume BIAB or traditional mashing and doesn't let you do anything in between.

Well, for BIAB I think it would not be hard to calculate the volumes and temperatures manually. I don't have my BS here at work today, so I can't look it up, but I think I remember doing it all by hand before I noticed BS had a feature for it. I can't recall if it had settings for a dunk sparge (Which is what I do).

I think it's a simple as adding up your grain weight, calculating the grain to water ratio, figuring grain absorption, and fudging the strike temp (I always aim a few degrees high form BS. It's easy to add a few ice cubes than it is to reheat the mash!)

Also, I just did a search on Google for BIAB calculator, and THIS SITE came up first. I've never used it and can't vouch for it's accuracy, but it looks to be pretty complete.

I double checked the numbers on the deafult recipe, and there is no way I'd get mash temp by striking in with 159F water. I have to go up to 163+. I'm guessing that's due to cooler heat absorption. If I preheated, it would make a big difference.

You should be able to get correct volumes and strike water temp if you set up the mash profile to use a traditional fly sparge.

I emailed Brad Smith about being able to specify a sparge for BIAB and this is was his response:

"If you set a non-BIAB profile (as a start) you can then adjust the water/grain for the mash (set it high) and it will estimate the sparge water needed (after your mash) which might work better for you."

Now, my question to Brad specifically had to do with BIAB mash and sparge volumes, not temp, and I was able to make my volumes come out correctly by doing what he instructed; however, I would assume that if the mash and sparge volumes are correct, then the strike water temp would also be accurate.

Homercidal said:

Well, for BIAB I think it would not be hard to calculate the volumes and temperatures manually. I don't have my BS here at work today, so I can't look it up, but I think I remember doing it all by hand before I noticed BS had a feature for it. I can't recall if it had settings for a dunk sparge (Which is what I do).

I think it's a simple as adding up your grain weight, calculating the grain to water ratio, figuring grain absorption, and fudging the strike temp (I always aim a few degrees high form BS. It's easy to add a few ice cubes than it is to reheat the mash!)

Also, I just did a search on Google for BIAB calculator, and THIS SITE came up first. I've never used it and can't vouch for it's accuracy, but it looks to be pretty complete.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that calculator's great but it doesn't allow for sparges, it just assumes you're doing full volume mashes. I don't really want to fudge on the strike temp, that's the problem!

MrSnacks said:

Yeah, that calculator's great but it doesn't allow for sparges, it just assumes you're doing full volume mashes. I don't really want to fudge on the strike temp, that's the problem!

Click to expand...

Oh, good point. You could assume the total volume is the same and then just calculate the mash water needed by dividing the grain and coming up with a ratio.

Seems like that would be a common thing for a lot of brewers who are used to batch sparging.

I also found it frustrating all the biab calculators did not allow sparging. I made a simple calculator based on another popular one that seemed easy to use. Take a look in my sig and let me know what you think.

What homercidal said should work though somewhat. Take the difference between grain temp and strike temp and multiple it by the ratio of total water required/mash water being used. This'll give the adjusted strike temp offset, now add the grain temp back to get the mash strike temp.

pricelessbrewing said:

I also found it frustrating all the biab calculators did not allow sparging. I made a simple calculator based on another popular one that seemed easy to use. Take a look in my sig and let me know what you think.

What homercidal said should work though somewhat. Take the difference between grain temp and strike temp and multiple it by the ratio of total water required/mash water being used. This'll give the adjusted strike temp offset, now add the grain temp back to get the mash strike temp.

Click to expand...

This is EXACTLY what I was looking for! Brilliant. Thank you!

You can figure strike water requirements for a 1.5:1 ratio by multiplying the Grain weight by 1.5 and the result is your water requirement in quarts.

So 11 lbs of grain comes out to 16.5 quarts. Divide by 4 to get gallons, if you wish. It equals 4.125 gallons. Subtract from the total "Water" and use the remainder to sparge with.

Assuming you've used an online calculator which takes grain absorption into account, that is.

In this example, the online calculator I used said you would need 7 gallons total water, so that leaves 2.875 gallons to sparge with.

A ratio of 1.25:1 equals just under 3.5 gallons strike and about 3.5 gallons sparge (rounding). Some people have even gone thicker than that when doing BIAB due to the low prospect of s stuck sparge.

pricelessbrewing said:

I also found it frustrating all the biab calculators did not allow sparging. I made a simple calculator based on another popular one that seemed easy to use. Take a look in my sig and let me know what you think.

What homercidal said should work though somewhat. Take the difference between grain temp and strike temp and multiple it by the ratio of total water required/mash water being used. This'll give the adjusted strike temp offset, now add the grain temp back to get the mash strike temp.

Click to expand...

Nice! But could it be set up to figure all of that out based on choosing a grain to water ratio? I am visiting your thread for comments and more information...

Ugh. I realized I forgot the total amount of water used for the mash affects the temp of water to hit mash temp. Now it's all more complicated again!

Sorry for the simplified calculation I posted. It will affect the resultant mash temp, so it's more complicated than I first thought.

I realize that checking the BIAB box in the mash profile will make BS assume a full volume mash and calculate strike temp accordingly, but if you're doing BIAB w/sparge, you can uncheck the BIAB box and manually input your strike water volume, which will then give you an accurate strike temp based on that volume. Will it not?

I just use the BIAB profile in BeerSmith, and take out some of the mash water to use for my dunk sparge. Then adjust est. efficiency according to your results (hopefully adjusting upward from BeerSmith's BIAB default ) Works great for me.

LLBeanJ said:

I realize that checking the BIAB box in the mash profile will make BS assume a full volume mash and calculate strike temp accordingly, but if you're doing BIAB w/sparge, you can uncheck the BIAB box and manually input your strike water volume, which will then give you an accurate strike temp based on that volume. Will it not?

Click to expand...

I think the problem if you uncheck the BIAB box is that it defaults to a different grain absorption rate. There's a grain absorption rate for BIAB and one for traditional mash, and if you uncheck BIAB it defaults back to traditional mash values.

I suppose I could change the grain absorption value for traditional mash since I don't ever do it that way, I won't screw anything up.

chocotaco said:

I just use the BIAB profile in BeerSmith, and take out some of the mash water to use for my dunk sparge. Then adjust est. efficiency according to your results (hopefully adjusting upward from BeerSmith's BIAB default ) Works great for me.

Click to expand...

But then your strike temperature is off. Unless you mean you dunk sparge with the water (now wort) you've already mashed with?

MrSnacks said:

But then your strike temperature is off. Unless you mean you dunk sparge with the water (now wort) you've already mashed with?

Click to expand...

You can get the new strike temperature if you double click on the Saccharification mash step and change the "Water to add" variable to how much you actually intend to use for the mash. The "Infusion temperature" will instantly update within the dialog box. The change won't stick, but you can write down the altered strike temp.

If that is confusing or too "manual", you can also add a "fake sparge" step where you just create a new infusion step (temp doesn't matter) and put in the amount of water under "Water to add" that you intend to dunk sparge with. This will make BeerSmith adjust the BIAB mash step accordingly.

I agree, he should allow the sparge to be edited.

MrSnacks said:

I think the problem if you uncheck the BIAB box is that it defaults to a different grain absorption rate. There's a grain absorption rate for BIAB and one for traditional mash, and if you uncheck BIAB it defaults back to traditional mash values.

I suppose I could change the grain absorption value for traditional mash since I don't ever do it that way, I won't screw anything up.

Click to expand...

Yes, that is correct. As you stated, if you want the absorption rate to be correct (and why wouldn't you?), you need to change the absorption rate for traditional mash to be the same as it is for BIAB. That is exactly what I did. Another thing I did was change the units for mash water volume from qts to gals. It's just easier for me to think in gallons.

As far as I can tell, the only down side is that it states "Fly sparge..." in the brewing notes. Fortunately, I know how I'm sparging, so I can live with the discrepancy.

Ahh I see, got it. That's all helpful. Thanks guys!

If you are trying to set up BeerSmith to do a BIAB with sparge, ignore the fact that you are doing BIAB. Just copy a single infusion profile and customize it to your equipment, process, and preferences. Profiles for one of my typical equipment and mash profiles are attached

View attachment BIAB with batch sparge equipment profile.bsmx

View attachment BIAB with batch sparge mash profile.bsmx

I have this set up and it works fine. What you do is this: use a BIAB profile set for your desired batch size. Then put your dunk sparge amount in the Kettle Top-up field in volumes.

This will decrease your mash water accordingly, and Beersmith will calculate the right strike temperature for you with the right amount of water, and correct grain absorbtion.

del said:

I have this set up and it works fine. What you do is this: use a BIAB profile set for your desired batch size. Then put your dunk sparge amount in the Kettle Top-up field in volumes.

This will decrease your mash water accordingly, and Beersmith will calculate the right strike temperature for you with the right amount of water, and correct grain absorbtion.

Click to expand...

I like this ^^^^

It's actually easier than what Brad Smith recommended and appears to accomplish the same thing. Thanks!

That's good to know.

I'm still working on updating my calculator a bit, and creating an online website version rather than a googledoc spreadsheet.

I'll give this a shot to compare my calculations against.