I don't understand Beersmith or math

I am trying to brew my first all grain right now and just don't get it. Beersmith seems to be using 1.25qts/lb for mash ratio, but it is telling me my mash volume needed is 4.8 Gallons. It is telling me to mash with 15.75 qts which is only 3.9 G. For sparging it is saying to use .18 G.

My recipe is using 11# of grain so at 1.25 qts/lb that is 13.75 qts. Calculating .5qt/lb asorbtion that leaves only 8.25 qts of first runnings. Do I then make up for everything with sparge water.

I am trying to compare this to what palmer is saying in his book, but am just not getting it, especially since he is saying to use 1.5-2 qts/lb for mash andtrying to do the math the long way.

I aslo can't seem to edit or change anything in beersmith to change amounts or anything (first time really using the program)

I attached a screen shot

Thanks

For 11 lbs typically i run 3.3 gal mash for around a 1.2 Qt/lb ratio then Fly sparge with and additional 4 gal. This leaves me with ~6 gal of wort and ~5 gal after 1 hour boil. That means i had about .4 Qt/lb absorption.

I'm not familiar with brew software other than brew timer spreadsheets. I hope i helped. Sparging with .18 is dead wrong.

You sure can make it up with sparge water. So if you have 11# of grain @ 1.25 quarts that would put you up to 13.75 quarts, minus grain absorption which for me seems to be about a gallon for every 5 pounds of grain. How much do you lose to boil off? for me its 1.5 gallons an hour. So if I want a 5 gallon batch, I am adding 2.2 gallons of water extra for grain absorbtion, and 1.5 gallons for boil off. So I need a total of 8.7 (34.8 quarts) gallons of water. So knowing that I need that much water to start, I simply mash at whatever rate I want (1.5q per pound is what I do). So I would take 16.5 quarts for strike water to mash, then drain and then add the remaining 18.5 quarts of water to sparge with. You'll end up with roughly 6.5 gallons after sparging if done this way. Hope this makes sense. Also I simply say 4 quarts per gallon of water. Makes it easy to do...

I think that you need to check your Brewsmith equipment profiles. When I put a generic recipe using 11# of grain into Brewsmith, it has me batch sparge in 2 steps with .61 gal & 3.73 gal. Probably more along the lines of what you are used to doing.

I haven't used beersmith before, but I think I've found some of your problems.

First: the 4.8 gallons is the total volume of your mash (i.e. volume of grains and water together). It tells you how big your mash tun needs to be.

Second: The discrepancy between the 13.75 and 15.75 quarts is due to the fact that you have a value of .5 gallons (2 quarts) entered as your mash deadspace (i.e. the space below the false bottom, if you're using one).

Last: You have your mash tun volume set as 3 gallons. I think that's why your sparge is coming in low. It's adjusting your sparge so that it can fit in the tun with your grains. Correct that to your proper tun volume and that should go away too.

Ok just so I am clear, I make up my needed volume through the sparge water amount? I will be batch sparging. So lets say I pull 2.5 G off in my first running, and I lose about 1.25G in boil off, I would need about 4 Gallons of sparge water for 5 Gallon batch?

Second, could you please tell me where I adjust all my mash tun values, etc. I can't adjust those numbers that slowbie pointed out on the screen that I am showing you.

Thanks for the quick replys

Yourrealdad said:

Ok just so I am clear, I make up my needed volume through the sparge water amount? I will be batch sparging. So lets say I pull 2.5 G off in my first running, and I lose about 1.25G in boil off, I would need about 4 Gallons of sparge water for 5 Gallon batch?

Second, could you please tell me where I adjust all my mash tun values, etc. I can't adjust those numbers that slowbie pointed out on the screen that I am showing you.

Thanks for the quick replys

Click to expand...

Yes sir you got it! And I don't use BS so I can't help you there bra...

You may want to verify that you are using the right profile before changing anything. It looks like the only preloaded profile with a 3 Gallon mash tun is the 3 Gallon Extract profile. If changing the profile doesn't do the trick; click on the Profile Tab and then the Equipment icon. Once there you can play with the equipment profiles to your heart's content.

So first of all you need to understand that BS is a tool to HELP you make your brew day easier as well as handling all your calculations for your recipe....

BTW, I'm not trying to be an a$$ hat, just trying to help

Everything bS does is based off your equipment profile so step one is to get the right profile set up so go to the equipment profile tab and select a pre set option that most closely matches your set up.

Look through that set up and change items that you KNOW to be different like boil off and losses. BS also uses I believe .21. For absorption. You can also change default values like how much you want to mash in with whether it be 1.25, 1.5 qts/lb ( I don't remember where to go to change these)

Once your profile is close, then put your recipe in. Note. Some values may differ a little based upon the software's default values for potential extract and SRM and hop AAs,etc. you can change these as well in the various tabs.

Brew: when you brew take notes pertaining to losses and other variables associated with your profile, then go back in and tweak those values.

It will take you a few batches to get things dialed in and then everything will be easier.

In addition, their website has great tutorials on all this stuff there are also numerous threads in the software forum!

You can change the ratio, but the default in BS is 1.25 (at least all the profiles I've used). To change it: Open the "profiles" tab, open the "Mash" profile, open the profile you plan to use, select (open) the "Mash In" or "Mash out", you should now see where to change the water/grain ratio in the right column. This will change the default for that profile whenever you choose it from now on till you decide to change it again. If you want to change it for just one batch, you can go to the mash profile in your recipe and change it the same way (pretty sure it leaves the primary profile at default that way.)

Thanks for the great info and help. Mash is underway and hit my temp almost right on (152.6).

Is the easiest way to measure asorbtion to drain into a measuring cup/pitcher before putting the wort into the boil kettle? Just try not to splash for hotside airation?

I'm about 30 batches deep using BS and I'm still finding things about it (good and bad) that I didn't know from the previous batch. There videos help a lot, but seat time helps the most. I've learned my technique for learning BeerSmith from watching my 10 year old son playing video games......Hit everything and see whats behind the door, ya never know (BTW - he kicks my a** at every game because he's found every trick move in the book with his "wonder what would happen if I did this" method")

Hopefully you have a way to measure the volume in your kettle. If not, see if you can come up with something before mash is done.. Maybe mark your spoon/mash paddle when adding a gallon at a time to your kettle. You'll want to know volumes anyway, and will let you know what your absorption was as well.

Yourrealdad said:

Thanks for the great info and help. Mash is underway and hit my temp almost right on (152.6).

Is the easiest way to measure asorbtion to drain into a measuring cup/pitcher before putting the wort into the boil kettle? Just try not to splash for hotside airation?

Click to expand...

Calibrate a brew stick you can use to measure the volume of your first runnings and subtract the amount from you strike water and the difference is what was absorbed. Divide that by your grain and you have your value.