Make adjustments to my equipment profile, or let it ride? (Beersmith)

I've made a handful of all grain batches now, and used Beersmith to put recipes together. I'd like to start tweaking things a bit so that I start getting consistently close results to the numbers that BS gives me.

I brewed a basic recipe (Closest to a blonde I suppose) last weekend and I'm not sure how to read things. I mashed for an hour and hit my temps (stirred well and checked temp after 10 minutes) within a degree. My pre-boil volume was low by half a gallon. I wouldn't worry about this, but the gravity read high. I added half a gallon of water to the brew pot to hit my 7.75 gallon volume and the SG was pretty darn close at that point. It seems at this point I just maybe need to adjust for mash tun dead space to account for that extra half gallon.

Where I'm confused a bit is with my post-boil volume. I was shooting for 5.5 gallons into the fermenter, but ended up with slightly more than 6. So at this point I have an extra half gallon of wort (This was measured cooled, in the fermenter), however my OG numbers were correct here. How did I end up with more wort, but correct gravity? Does this have something to do with efficiency maybe?

I probably should have just kept going with the original volumes and not added extra water, but I find it hard to resist tinkering with things on the fly to try and "fix" them. Either way I'll end up with good beer, so it isn't too important, but I'm enjoying trying to make things accurate between the software and reality.

It looks like what happened is you achieved a higher mash efficiency than you set in Beersmith and you have your boil off rate set about 0.5 gal per hour (assuming a 60 min boil) too high. Also, I think you are correct in assuming that you were 0.5 gal low pre-boil due to not entering the correct deadspace in your mash tun.

Thanks for your comments. I think for my next brew I will try upping my efficiency in Beersmith a couple percent, and then try adding a half gallon to the dead space field in my profile and see where that gets me. I'll hold off messing with the boil off rate for now, until the other stuff starts working properly.

I don't completely agree with WayFrae.

I would say that your mash efficiency was "pretty darn close" to what BS estimated, BUT that you have the 0.5 gallon loss in your MLT (as you noted). Adjust your MLT losses, and next time you should drain full preboil volume with BS estimated gravity.

The extra 0.5 gallon in your fermenter with correct gravity I suspect comes from BS using a higher BK loss than you actually have. Perhaps BS is estimating you'll lose 1 gallon in BK but you only lose 0.5 gallon (or it estimates you'll lose 0.5 gallon and you dump the whole BK into fermenter). Something along those lines. It's also possible that, as WF suggested, your boil-off rate is less than BS is estimating. In all actuality, it's probably a combination of both.

What you're doing, tinkering on the fly, is perfectly fine and something I do when needed. Also, keeping track of accurate volumes and gravities throughout your brewday is key to tailoring an equipment profile that best suits your system/environment.

stpug said:

I don't completely agree with WayFrae.

I would say that your mash efficiency was "pretty darn close" to what BS estimated, BUT that you have the 0.5 gallon loss in your MLT (as you noted). Adjust your MLT losses, and next time you should drain full preboil volume with BS estimated gravity.

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If his efficiency was close to what Beersmith said then wouldn't his numbers be low? He added a half gallon of water and still hit his Beersmith numbers which makes me think he achieved a greater efficiency.

fleabagmatt said:

My pre-boil volume was low by half a gallon. I wouldn't worry about this, but the gravity read high. I added half a gallon of water to the brew pot to hit my 7.75 gallon volume and the SG was pretty darn close at that point. It seems at this point I just maybe need to adjust for mash tun dead space to account for that extra half gallon.

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WayFrae said:

If his efficiency was close to what Beersmith said then wouldn't his numbers be low? He added a half gallon of water and still hit his Beersmith numbers which makes me think he achieved a greater efficiency.

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I may just be misunderstanding what he/she actually did. From the quote above, it seems like he drained all of the liquid he could into his brewpot and was 1/2 gallon shy of preboil volume with a higher than expected preboil gravity. He then added 1/2 gallon straight water to reach his preboil volume and his gravity ended up "pretty darn close" [to the beersmith estimate, I assume?]. But, again, I may just be misunderstanding what actually happened.

If this ^^ is what happened than I would say beersmith's estimate of his efficiency is correct (he hit his preboil gravity at the correct preboil volume), but BS is underestimating his MLT losses.

stpug said:

I may just be misunderstanding what he/she actually did. From the quote above, it seems like he drained all of the liquid he could into his brewpot and was 1/2 gallon shy of preboil volume with a higher than expected preboil gravity. He then added 1/2 gallon straight water to reach his preboil volume and his gravity ended up "pretty darn close" [to the beersmith estimate, I assume?]. But, again, I may just be misunderstanding what actually happened.

If this ^^ is what happened than I would say beersmith's estimate of his efficiency is correct (he hit his preboil gravity at the correct preboil volume), but BS is underestimating his MLT losses.

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You are correct, stpug. I drained the mash tun and checked the gravity, which was high, and my volume was low. I added 1/2 gallon of fresh water to the pot before the boil and rechecked gravity which got me close (Sorry, I don't recall exact numbers at this point.)

As for my kettle losses, I believe I have that set to zero in BS, as I dump everything into the fermenter. I'll have to double check, though.

stpug said:

I may just be misunderstanding what he/she actually did. From the quote above, it seems like he drained all of the liquid he could into his brewpot and was 1/2 gallon shy of preboil volume with a higher than expected preboil gravity. He then added 1/2 gallon straight water to reach his preboil volume and his gravity ended up "pretty darn close" [to the beersmith estimate, I assume?]. But, again, I may just be misunderstanding what actually happened.

If this ^^ is what happened than I would say beersmith's estimate of his efficiency is correct (he hit his preboil gravity at the correct preboil volume), but BS is underestimating his MLT losses.

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Ah, makes much more sense. Thanks for clarifying.

I thought I would give an update to this since I brewed again today. I had a go at this recipe. As mentioned above, I added 1/2 gallon to my mash tun loss in my profile. I don't think I changed anything else. I hit my pre-boil volume pretty much spot on and my preboil gravity was .01 shy of estimated. I was confused in that Beersmith listed a post boil volume of 7.72 gallons and I had 5.5 gallons into the fermenter. I went back into beersmith and learned that post boil volume is before cooling, which I can't really measure due to my chiller sitting in the pot. BS shows .23 gallon cooling shrinkage and 5.5 gallons into the fermenter, which means I hit my volumes right on (yay!) and my starting gravity was also .01 shy of estimated.

Looks like if I can get my efficiency up a couple percent I'll be dead on with my numbers, that makes me happy. Or maybe I'll just drop my profile efficiency down to 68% and call it good.

Thanks to you both for the advice. My IPA and I both appreciate the help.