Beer smith volumes

Im hoping someone can shed some light on an issue I am having with BeerSmith. The calculated post boil volume is almost a gallon high from what it should be. Also, does that affect the calculated post boil SG?

My AG setup is as follows.
10 Gal kettle
10 Gal MLT (round GOTT type cooler with SS false bottom)
Batch sparging
Brewing 5 Gal batches.

I know from the several batches if brewed I need 6.5 Gal of wort out of the MLT for 5Gal into the fermenter.

My last batch BeerSmith calculated as follows.
Preboil 6.53 Gal 1.047 SG
Post Boil 5.98 Gal 1.053

I end up with 5 Gal 1.053 SG

Where does the extra .98 get calculated? Is the calculated SG correct?

I hope I am asking the questions correctly. If not, Please let me know if you need any more info.

Thanks

That is trub loss--the amount of wort that will be left in the kettle with the trub when you rack to primary.

I do 5.5 gallon batches. My post-boil is around 6.5 and trub loss about a gallon.

As for the SG, all of the wort is the same gravity. Leaving some behind doesn't change it.

To set it up, go into "settings" and add some volume to where your losses are, if that makes sense. Look at the boil off volume, and see if that's correct. Look at the deadspace, and make sure it's correct. You can do that until it's correct for your system.

Thanks.


Sounds like my procedure is off. I've been straining everything from the kettle to fermenter to get the 5 gal. Why leave some behind? Or am I misunderstanding what you mean by trub loss?

cluckk said:

That is trub loss--the amount of wort that will be left in the kettle with the trub when you rack to primary.

I do 5.5 gallon batches. My post-boil is around 6.5 and trub loss about a gallon.

Click to expand...

Wow - If your post boil is 6.5 gallons, what is your boil volume for a 90 minute boil?

mjdonnelly68 said:

Wow - If your post boil is 6.5 gallons, what is your boil volume for a 90 minute boil?

Click to expand...

I usually do 60's. My preboil volume is about 7.8 gallons or so.

If you are shooting for 5 gallons at x gravity and end up putting 5 gallons at x gravity into the fermenter why worry about leaving a bit extra in the kettle?

I've been working on volumes myself, seems I'm always low going into the fermenter. On the last batch I found my tun dead space to be .75 not .5. Today I found my boil off to be closer to 1.5G, not the 1 that was entered, brewing again in 2 weeks I guess I'll see how much closer I am now. It's a process, and I learn something every brew day. Now if I could just figure out why my mash temp is always low.

The tun dead space has to do more with adjusting the liquid to mash ratio.

If you have 6.5 gallons at the end of boil and get only 5 gallons in the fermentor, it should be fairly obvious where the issue is. There's a gallon and a half of trub, hops, and wort somewhere. It's either in the kettle or in your tubing or on the floor.

Either way, trub loss is the only way to account for process losses in Beersmith.

OTOH; if your kettle full volume and gravity match BS, you won't get help by changing any mash equipment profiles. The answer has to be in the kettle.

You said your kettle post boil balling matches BS. If your boil off volume is not 100% true to life and/or your kettle full gravity is not identical to BS, you will need to adjust some mash parameters *edit- ...or boil off rate.

If your kettle full (pre-boil) gravity and your fermenter ful( post boil gravity match BS, the issue is with the trub loss value.

cluckk said:

I usually do 60's. My preboil volume is about 7.8 gallons or so.

If you are shooting for 5 gallons at x gravity and end up putting 5 gallons at x gravity into the fermenter why worry about leaving a bit extra in the kettle?

Click to expand...

Agreed - better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

Let me clarify.

Beersmith calculates that I should have 6.53 gal preboil. I meet that expectation.
Beersmith Calculates I should have 5.98 gal post boil. I get 5 gal. Should I raise my preboil to meet the 5.98 or adjust the equipment profile to match the 5 gal I get? And if the latter, where in beersmith do I adjust it?

ForestGroveBrewer said:

Let me clarify.

Beersmith calculates that I should have 6.53 gal preboil. I meet that expectation.
Beersmith Calculates I should have 5.98 gal post boil. I get 5 gal. Should I raise my preboil to meet the 5.98 or adjust the equipment profile to match the 5 gal I get? And if the latter, where in beersmith do I adjust it?

Click to expand...

Does the 5 gallons you are measuring include trub?

Go to the beer smith website and click on videos for tutorials

sherma said:

Does the 5 gallons you are measuring include trub?

Click to expand...

Yes, I strain all my wort from the kettle to the fermenter. Note: I use a basket strainer to put my hops in. When the boil is complete I squeeze all the liquid from it to the wort. What I end up with is 5 gal in the fermenter.

My concern is that BS is calculating the SG for a larger amount of wort. If so, how to correct.

ForestGroveBrewer said:

Yes, I strain all my wort from the kettle to the fermenter. Note: I use a basket strainer to put my hops in. When the boil is complete I squeeze all the liquid from it to the wort. What I end up with is 5 gal in the fermenter.

My concern is that BS is calculating the SG for a larger amount of wort. If so, how to correct.

Click to expand...

It's in the equipment profile. There are fields for Boil Volume, Boil Off and Loss to Trub and Chller that you have to set correctly.

It calculates two different gravities: one is based on your pre-boil volume and the other is based on your post boil volume.

What is the gravity you have at pre boil compared to what beersmith says it should be?

Brewskii said:

What is the gravity you have at pre boil compared to what beersmith says it should be?

Click to expand...

Usually right on.

Beersmith is really terrible with volumes. It typically gives volumes at the temp stated, but not always. And that's not how I do volumes; I only measure cold from the faucet or at a boil. So I switched to hand calcs, and find it much easier to manage. And I learned that the sparge volumes are just usually wrong as far as I cal tell. One of these days I'll post my formulas....

SpeedYellow said:

Beersmith is really terrible with volumes. It typically gives volumes at the temp stated, but not always. And that's not how I do volumes; I only measure cold from the faucet or at a boil. So I switched to hand calcs, and find it much easier to manage. And I learned that the sparge volumes are just usually wrong as far as I cal tell. One of these days I'll post my formulas....

Click to expand...

I respectfully disagree. I always hit my pre and post boil volumes spot on using BeerSmith. Well, I do now anyway. It took 4 or 5 brews using the software before I really understood everything I needed to understand about it.

Sounds like your not getting a good yield from your grain. Next time try stopping your runoff before your grain hits air, and stir the mash. Let it sit a few minutes before starting your runoff again. If your desperate do a stir(and rest) everytime you throw a can of sparge water on it. If you dont let i rest, youll get tannins

sherma said:

I respectfully disagree. I always hit my pre and post boil volumes spot on using BeerSmith. Well, I do now anyway. It took 4 or 5 brews using the software before I really understood everything I needed to understand about it.

Click to expand...

I'm with you. BeerSmith has been pretty much spot on for me. Once I got my specific equipment input it went much smoother!

ForestGroveBrewer said:

Usually right on.

Click to expand...

Somthing isn't adding up. If you have your numbers at kettle full and you have 1.5 gal less than calculated volume but at the correct calculated gravity post boil, something is wrong...

The only thing changing in the boil is water which is a straight up math problem easily handled by BS

Brewskii said:

Somthing isn't adding up. If you have your numbers at kettle full and you have 1.5 gal less than calculated volume but at the correct calculated gravity post boil, something is wrong...

The only thing changing in the boil is water which is a straight up math problem easily handled by BS

Click to expand...

Thats true. However, as I have stated before, BS is calculating 6.53 Gal Pre-boil. 5.98 post-boil for a 5 fal batch. I get exactly 5 gal out of the kettle.

I guess my question is, am I supposed to get 5.98 gal into the fermenter at the calulated SG?

ForestGroveBrewer said:

Thats true. However, as I have stated before, BS is calculating 6.53 Gal Pre-boil. 5.98 post-boil for a 5 fal batch. I get exactly 5 gal out of the kettle.

I guess my question is, am I supposed to get 5.98 gal into the fermenter at the calulated SG?

Click to expand...

What you're seeing seems about right to me; but BS's numbers look weird. What are you inputting and what are you actually getting for (a) boil-off rate, and (b) trub losses? If you don't know those 2 things, you'll never make any sense of Beersmith.

I usually see about 21% boil off rate per hour if I use 2 pots, or around 15% for one pot. And 4% shrinkage factor. And trub losses of roughly 0.053 gal per lb of grains (thus, about 0.5 gal for a 10-lb batch).

You need to know your boil off rate and have it entered correctly. You also need to know the loss to trub and the amount of top up water into the fermentor. All of that is in the equipment profile and you need to set it specifically for your equipment.

I just looked at the equipment profile for "Pot and Cooler (5 gal/19 L) - All Grain" in BeerSmith. It's default settings are showing exactly the numbers you posted above for pre and post boil volumes. If that is the profile you are using, then you need to modify it to fit your situation. Modify everything on that tab to fit your equipment.

It sounds to me like your efficiency numbers are off. If you are getting the correct pre-boil volume, then you need to measure your pre-boil gravity and compare that to the beersmith calculated pre-boil gravity, and adjust your efficiency number till the system calculates the same pre-boil as what you are actually achieving. Then adjust your boil off rate so your post boil volume equals the 5 gallons you said you are actually ending up with.

As SpeedYellow said.

I believe that the pre/post boil volumnes Beersmith gives to you when the wort is boiling. This would give you an increase of 4% compared to if you measured at non-boil (70F) temperatures.

Someone correct me if I'm mistaken.

sherma said:

You need to know your boil off rate and have it entered correctly. You also need to know the loss to trub and the amount of top up water into the fermentor. All of that is in the equipment profile and you need to set it specifically for your equipment.

I just looked at the equipment profile for "Pot and Cooler (5 gal/19 L) - All Grain" in BeerSmith. It's default settings are showing exactly the numbers you posted above for pre and post boil volumes. If that is the profile you are using, then you need to modify it to fit your situation. Modify everything on that tab to fit your equipment.

Click to expand...

+1

Once I got my equipment settings dialed in, the numbers that BS calculates have been nearly dead on each time.

Make sure that everything that you adjust in the profile is done from the profile tab and not from within a recipe. When you make changes to the profile from within the recipe, it only changes for that one recipe (not any future recipes that you create with that profile). If you want to see how those changes affect an already existing recipe, you can make the changes a 2nd time from within the recipe. BS does this intentionally so that changes to a future recipe will not screw up the numbers on previous recipes.

ForestGrove, ignore the gravity side of the equation for now, first you need to get your volume settings in order. Then, once all of the volumes are correct, as you adjust your efficiency the gravity numbers will fall into place as well.

The videos on the BS site do a fairly good job of explaining how to make the adjustments, but here is how I went through the configuration:

You said that BS calculated your preboil volume as 6.53 gallons, and that is what you collected. So that tells me your mash/sparge settings are already correct for the profile that you are using.

BS also calculated your post boil volume as 5.98 gallons and you actually only collected 5.

The .55 gallons that BS calculated as loss went somewhere, as did the additional .98 gallons that you did not collect. the lost wort is one of three places: cooling loss, boil off, or losses to trub. It is those three items that you will need to adjust in the profile to make the software match the real world.

I would leave the cooling loss at the default 4% as it is accurate enough for our purposes.

Most likely, your boil off number is incorrect. To calculate your boil off you will simply need to measure the volume of liquid before you start boiling and after the boil has finished (but before you transfer it to the fermenter). Subtract the ending volume from the starting volume and enter it into BS along with the amount of time you boiled the liquid. It will probably be somewhere around a gallon for a 60 minute boil.

After cooling the wort, measure the volume again, then transfer to the fermenter. The difference between what you started with before the transfer, and what is actually in the bucket after any straining that you do, would be the "loss to trub" entry in BS.

Once you get the volume numbers to match the real world, BS does a good job of calculating the numbers in the future. None of it is rocket science, it is really just simple math, but BS does make the calculations easier when you decide to do something like a 6 gallon batch instead of 5 gallons, or a 75 minute boil instead of a 60 minute one.

Hope this helped.

Kurt

Don't just adjust your boil off rate so that it matches your numbers, as someone suggested above. Actually measure it. Put 2 gallons of water in your pot, boil it for an hour, then measure how much is left at the end. Put the difference in as the boil off amount in your equipment profile.

Leave the brewhouse efficiency in the equipment profile alone for a few brews. Once you've brewed a few times (I think I did it after 5 brews), making sure you have the boil off and loss to trub correct and any top up water you needed to add to ANYTHING (boil or fermentor), THEN look at the Fermentation tab for those recipes, look in the Brewhouse Efficiency area and take an average of the Measured Efficiency and modify your equipment profile to be that average.

sherma said:

Don't just adjust your boil off rate so that it matches your numbers, as someone suggested above. Actually measure it. Put 2 gallons of water in your pot, boil it for an hour, then measure how much is left at the end. Put the difference in as the boil off amount in your equipment profile....

Click to expand...

I think what you're saying is that if you start with 2 gal and boil off 0.9 gal, then you'd assume a 7-gal boil will also boil off 0.9 gal. I'm not sure that's true, due to the vagaries of heat transfer. But assuming it were, then you'd tell BS that the Evap Rate is 0.9/7 = 13%.

Simpler and more accurate is to just assume 15% then measure pre- and post-boil volumes during your next batch in order to refine the number. Done.

SpeedYellow said:

I think what you're saying is that if you start with 2 gal and boil off 0.9 gal, then you'd assume a 7-gal boil will also boil off 0.9 gal. I'm not sure that's true, due to the vagaries of heat transfer. But assuming it were, then you'd tell BS that the Evap Rate is 0.9/7 = 13%.

Simpler and more accurate is to just assume 15% then measure pre- and post-boil volumes during your next batch in order to refine the number. Done.

Click to expand...

No, I don't think you want to do that. You want to go through this procedure for your boil kettle because each boil kettle will have a different boil off rate, mostly due to different surface areas between kettles.

It's true that if you boiled the same amount of water on 2 different days you would likely end up with slightly different boil off amounts, due to temperature and humidity, but that doesn't mean you should guess and just fudge your number in the software. It's a simple procedure to measure your boil off one time with water and use that in BeerSmith. No reason not to do it.

Seems you missed my point: boiling 2 gal will give you a different boil-off rate than boiling 7 gal. So I don't see this test as being any more accurate from simply assuming 15% then refining it a bit from the next batch. The error won't be any big deal. Plus you're not wasting time and energy required of this test. Just seems frivolous to me. Guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

ForestGroveBrewer said:

Thats true. However, as I have stated before, BS is calculating 6.53 Gal Pre-boil. 5.98 post-boil for a 5 fal batch. I get exactly 5 gal out of the kettle.

I guess my question is, am I supposed to get 5.98 gal into the fermenter at the calulated SG?

Click to expand...

The batch size, is the amount in the fermenter, so if you are setting up for a 5 Gal batch, and you are getting 5 gallons, you are dead on.

If you look at The waterNeeded tool, it shows Boil and Fermentaion numbers. Boil Volume is your Pre Boil number (figured from the Mash section above).

You then have Boil Off, Loss to trub and Chiller, and Cooling Loss Rate (plus top off if your not doing full volume boil) that will give you Volume into Fermenter.

So somewhere you have .98 Gallons in the fields that count for your loss

The Losses in fermentation are for trub, etc that doesn't get bottled to give you the correct bottling amount

sherma said:

You need to know your boil off rate and have it entered correctly. You also need to know the loss to trub and the amount of top up water into the fermentor. All of that is in the equipment profile and you need to set it specifically for your equipment.

I just looked at the equipment profile for "Pot and Cooler (5 gal/19 L) - All Grain" in BeerSmith. It's default settings are showing exactly the numbers you posted above for pre and post boil volumes. If that is the profile you are using, then you need to modify it to fit your situation. Modify everything on that tab to fit your equipment.

Click to expand...

That could be my problem. When I upgraded to all-grain recently, I couldnt find a default equipment profile for 10 gal pot/ 10 gal (38L) cooler. So I copied 5gal/19L and renamed it. I thought I changed all the info to match my setup, but maybe missed something.

I will look and let you know.

Thanks!

I checked my boil off rate by measuring eight gallons of water into the kettle at ambient temp and boiling for an hour. I then cooled back to ambient temp and measured the amount. I was barely off of BrewSmith's default numbers.