BeerSmith question....

How do I designate that a grain will be steeped prior to the boil in Beer Smith? Or does it just assume they're intended to be steeped when it's an extract recipe?

Just specify "Extract" as the recipe type, add the grains to your recipe and Beersmith will create steeping instructions. Click "preview brewsheet" to have a look.

It assumes it's a steeping grain when you designate an extract recipe. It's handy to keep checking the "preview brew sheet" button to see what your inputs are translating into for the actual brewing session.

Sweet... follow-up question:

The direction provided by Beer Smith say to add the 4 remaining lbs of DME to the fermenter after the wort has been cooled and combined with the top off water...

I've always added the second half of the DME or LME to the brew pot at 0, allowed to stand 5-10 minutes, cooled, then combined with top off water in the fermenter. I'd assume it'd be hard to get the DME to mix well with the colder water in the fermenter and it wouldn't have a chance to be sanitized by the hot wort? Thoughts?

I wouldn't do that. When I did extract, I would always add DME at the beginning of the boil, and LME with 15min to go. DME likes to clump too much, and I just feel weird about not boiling the extract at all. 4lbs is a ton of DME (more than I ever used in a single batch) and I can imagine it will take some stirring to dissolve it all. How big is your boil?

It's a 3 gal boil for a 5 gal batch. 3 lbs Pale DME at 60, the remaining 4 lbs Amber DME at knockout. Keeps the hop utilization in control and helps allow for 69.9 IBU's.

American IPA

Maybe you can put the rest of the DME in your top up water, shake, then mix with your boil?

HOP-HEAD said:

helps allow for 69.9 IBU's.

Click to expand...

Sorry to say, but no it doesn't, at least not with a 3 gallon boil.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/how-many-ibus-do-i-gain-lose-when-using-87998/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/full-boil-vs-partial-boil-hops-utilization-88417/

I would still do the late extract addition, but definately don't add it to the cooled wort in the fermenter. I always added the late addition at the last 10 minutes to let it boil so I made sure any contaminants were dead.

Why does Beer Smith allow you to enter a boil volume and a full batch volume, then compute's IBU's for you if they aren't even correct. It shows 69.9 with a 3 gal boil, 5 gallon full batch, and the DME additions as noted earlier? Not doubting you, I just don't get why it wouldn't show you the "true" IBU's?

I don't know why, and I haven't been able to figure it out in any of the other brewing software applications either, but it is impossible to reach according to scientists. The simple fact is that a wort cannot have more than 100 IBUs regardless of gravity and volume, and if you take 2.5 gallons of 100 IBU wort, and dilute it with 0 IBU water, then you are left with 50 IBUs, and that's the most you can ever hope to get.

Also, BeerSmith is initially set to use the Tinseth formula for IBU calculations which is based primarily on full boils, the Rager formula is geared more towards extract brewers, but still does not take fully into account IBU limitaions. You can change BeerSmith to use Rager or Garetz instead.

And to completely answer your question, there is no "true" IBU, those three formulas I mentioned can give you huge (30+) differences in IBU calculations, even on the same recipe. The only way to really find out "true" IBUs is through photospetromic analysis.

Find an equation that works for you, or that you get most of your recipes from, and stick to it, but realize that you taste buds are going to be better determinants of IBUs than calculations.

I just realized that if you Google "IBUs and wort gravity", I have the top two responses, I even beat out Jamil.

Thanks.

I had read earlier that the IBU's were significantly altered by the boil size, but being an Engineer, I took stake in the formulas being a bit more accurate. Personally, I find the things useless if one can't get closer than 2-40 IBU's one way or the other. I can guess that close.

I used Palmer's book to determine a 3 gal boil gravity utilizing only the initial 3 lb extract addition and came to 1.046 vs. 1.060 at the full 5 gal mark.

Then used that boil gravity with the Tinseth chart to compute each hop addition at 49.02, 15.18, and 5.71... 69.91. When it mirrored Beer Smith, I figured I was on to something.

Now, considering that I can really only achieve a max of about 50... I see that I accomplished nothing; really doing no more than waste a few minutes performing useless (severely inaccurate) computations.

This may help you. Your almost there figuring out the numbers, with one step missing.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/attention-all-partial-boil-brewers-91059/