BeerSmith's Mash Profiles

I am finally going all grain and I am thinking of purchasing this software and I am currently using the free trial version. I am doing 5 gallon batches and my equipment is a 30qt turkey fryer and a 10 gallon round cooler for a mash tun. I have entered this equipment as my profile equipment. I am a little confused by the mash profiles and thus have some questions.

1) Which profile do I use for a batch sparge with equal (almost) water amounts? And will it update automatically (temps and water amounts) based on my entered grain bill and equipment profile?

2) Do most users set up a separate mash profile for each recipe?

3) If none of the water amounts in the Mash profiles update automatically is using the Water Needed tool the easiest way to determine the amount of water needed in each step?

If you pick a profile, you can go it and click "edit" or something like that to divide the sparge water into two rounds. It'll allow you to click on "use water to fill _____% of the MLT" or something like that.

Thanks yooper.
So if I choose "Single Infusion, Medium Body" for example, there is a block that has Batch Sparge Options with 3 check boxes and the option to select a % of the mash tun volume. All three boxes are checked and the % is 100, but the software still says to use 15 qts for mash in and 7 gts for mash out on a recipe with 10 lbs of grain. That's only 22 qts not counting dead space and absorbtion. This won't get me to 5 gallons post boil.

eagle61 said:

Thanks yooper.
So if I choose "Single Infusion, Medium Body" for example, there is a block that has Batch Sparge Options with 3 check boxes and the option to select a % of the mash tun volume. All three boxes are checked and the % is 100, but the software still says to use 15 qts for mash in and 7 gts for mash out on a recipe with 10 lbs of grain. That's only 22 qts not counting dead space and absorbtion. This won't get me to 5 gallons post boil.

Click to expand...

You'll need to hit the preview brew sheet at the top of the recipe page, that will give you your sparge amounts. You also may have to adjust the % of the mash tun, under the details button, next to the mash profile. It will only give equal splits when the %'s are right. Or just split them by hand.

wildwest450 said:

You'll need to hit the preview brew sheet at the top of the recipe page, that will give you your sparge amounts. You also may have to adjust the % of the mash tun, under the details button, next to the mash profile. It will only give equal splits when the %'s are right. Or just split them by hand.

Click to expand...

Thanks wildwest!
I did not see the preview recipe button earlier. It looks like all the steps are there they just don't show up on the main recipe page.
Also while playing around with BeerSmith, I noticed that the "Single Infusion" profile has a Mash In and a Mash Out while the "Single Infusion, Batch Sparge" only has a Mash In step. Are there any advantages or disadvantages to one method or the other?

Can of worms aside, i think the software assumption is that your batch sparge is going to act as your mashout (ie. performed at mashout temp).