Beersmith

Can somebody please input my all-grain recipe into beersmith? I'm curious how it fares to the program that I use on my Itouch and the efficiency I get.

10# White Wheat Malt
5# Vienna Malt
2# Dark Munich Malt
.5# of Crystal 60L
.5# Melaniodin

Strike was 5.6 gal at 166. Mash at 152.
Sparge was 4.4 gal at 190.
I boiled for 90min.

For 75% efficiency im suppose to get an og of 1.090. But I got a pre-boil gravity of 1.060 and a post boil og of 1.070. I've never matched any og on the program I use but are very close to the og of the recipes posted on this site. I also found out in this batch that my thermometer reads 209 at boiling temp. So that could be screwing up my mash temp and sparge temp which would effect efficiency.

Thank you for the help.

It's a free download to try, just sayin.

I already used the free trail, but ill try it now.

If your serious about brewing good software is invaluable. Then you can input all your system parameters and get a more accurate number than we could provide.

I understand the software is important, im just trying to gauge it to the software im currently using with the use of basic parameters.

When I plugged your grist into Beersmith, with 75% efficiency and a 5 gallon batch, I get a predicted og of 1.101.

Well i suck, thats a big discrepancy probably around 50 to 60% efficiency. Thanks for the help Jim.

Bryan, I have a different take on efficiency - for those us who make handmade beers, high efficiency isn't such a big deal. We're talking about the difference of a pound of grain here or there, not a big deal. What is more important, I think, is to have my process down so that I can pretty well predict what my OG will be, within reason.

I input your ingredients into BeerSmith and came up with numbers similar to yours. You have to keep in mind that the yield for each grain may be different from software to software. It all depends on where they get their info from and if they are using the same exact grain. i.e I checked the yield for Briess 2row (1.037) and generic 2row (1.036) so Beer Smith has them listed with different yields.

Pappers said:

Bryan, I have a different take on efficiency - for those us who make handmade beers, high efficiency isn't such a big deal. We're talking about the difference of a pound of grain here or there, not a big deal. What is more important, I think, is to have my process down so that I can pretty well predict what my OG will be, within reason.

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This was the biggest mental hurdle for me to overcome. Hearing that some people were getting up to 80+% efficiency I kept trying to figure out why I wasn't getting anywhere near what they were. Once I stepped back and took a look at my process and equipment and realized that my efficiency varied on 2% (65-67). Now that I have gotten over that "gotta have better efficiency" mentality I am satisfied knowing I am consistent.

Thats the thing though, its the efficiency has been inconsistent and varies from batch to batch. More practice should help get to a consistent number. Its nice to know that the software i've been using is somewhat similar to beersmith.

Just curious, what app are you using? I was looking for one for my Iphone.

I have been using Brewpal.