Help. I cant get fly sparge volume in BS to correlate with my system

So. I did a brew the other day which was the first on the new setup.

When I to put the data I got from the brew into BS the software tells me to fly sparge with 4 litres less than we did.

The data which i put into the kettle and mash profiles are pretty accurate. So if I would do another brew, and use the amount of sparge volume BS tells me to use, I would end up with 4 litres less wort in real life comparing to what BS tells me I would end up with.

How do i fix this? I've been messing around with numbers and settings for several hours, but I can't get them to match what's actually going on in my setup.

my guess is that your boil-off rate in Beersmith is incorrect. I would start by adjusting the boil-off rate. That has a direct effect on the amount of sparge water you will need. It took me no less than 5 brews to get Beersmith dialed in with my equipment.

EDIT: The ajustment is located in your equipment profile. If you haven't, you should create a new equipment profile and go from there.

jeremy0209 said:

my guess is that your boil-off rate in Beersmith is incorrect. I would start by adjusting the boil-off rate. That has a direct effect on the amount of sparge water you will need. It took me no less than 5 brews to get Beersmith dialed in with my equipment.

EDIT: The ajustment is located in your equipment profile. If you haven't, you should create a new equipment profile and go from there.

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Well, the only thing I have not changed in my setup is the kettle. I've measured it every time, and that number is pretty accurate. I'm boiling 22liters in a 24 liter pot. So four litres less boiloff would be pretty extreme change for that small volume. I'm currently boiling off 3.17 litres per hour for a 4.75 total for a 90 minute boil.

Smellyglove said:

Well, the only thing I have not changed in my setup is the kettle. I've measured it every time, and that number is pretty accurate. I'm boiling 22liters in a 24 liter pot. So four litres less boiloff would be pretty extreme change for that small volume. I'm currently boiling off 3.17 litres per hour for a 4.75 total for a 90 minute boil.

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Well then, color me stumped. Assuming you know your boil-off rate and it's correct in Beersmith, I'm not sure what other adjustment you could make within Beersmith that would account for 4 liters. Perhaps you discovered a bug. (I discovered a yeast bug that gives me two different viable cell counts on the same yeast with the same manufacturing date) so it's definitely not out of the question. Did you try closing and reopening the program? I've also found that sometimes my numbers get a little whacky and a simple restart of the program seems to fix it. Also, I've found that sometimes reselecting your equipment profile in a recipe fixes some things, too. You could also email Beersmith support.

jeremy0209 said:

Well then, color me stumped. Assuming you know your boil-off rate and it's correct in Beersmith, I'm not sure what other adjustment you could make within Beersmith that would account for 4 liters. Perhaps you discovered a bug. (I discovered a yeast bug that gives me two different viable cell counts on the same yeast with the same manufacturing date) so it's definitely not out of the question. Did you try closing and reopening the program? I've also found that sometimes my numbers get a little whacky and a simple restart of the program seems to fix it. Also, I've found that sometimes reselecting your equipment profile in a recipe fixes some things, too. You could also email Beersmith support.

Click to expand...

Well, I did as you said and upped the boiloffrate a bit, even overshooting a little bit, but it still leaves me 3.5 litres short. I'm fairly new to this so my guess is that I'm doing something wrong. I bet this software has been through a lot of tests by the users and I couldn't find any topic where people are having the same issue as me.

I'm trying to work backwards, taking the data i've collected and put them into BS, so I would end up with the same numbers in the software as I did while brewing, as this would reflect what's going on in my setup, so when it does, the future reciepes would be correct with what i'm getting out of the system.

And yeah. I know that changing something in the equipment profile need me to go back to the reciepe and reselect that equipment/mash profile so the software can reload the profile and get the changes made.

Smellyglove said:

Well, I did as you said and upped the boiloffrate a bit, even overshooting a little bit, but it still leaves me 3.5 litres short. I'm fairly new to this so my guess is that I'm doing something wrong. I bet this software has been through a lot of tests by the users and I couldn't find any topic where people are having the same issue as me.

I'm trying to work backwards, taking the data i've collected and put them into BS, so I would end up with the same numbers in the software as I did while brewing, as this would reflect what's going on in my setup, so when it does, the future reciepes would be correct with what i'm getting out of the system.

Click to expand...

Check your losses due to deadspace and/or absorption. That could be where a gallon (4 liters) is going!

Yooper said:

Check your losses due to deadspace and/or absorption. That could be where a gallon (4 liters) is going!

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I totally forgot about deadspace. My deadspace is .38 gal (1.4 liters or 35% of your loss) on my mash tun.

Yooper said:

Check your losses due to deadspace and/or absorption. That could be where a gallon (4 liters) is going!

Click to expand...

Yeah. 1 litre in the mash tun and 1.5 litres of sludge in the kettle.

The 1 litre in the mash tun is set to 1 litre in the "deadspace" field in the mash profile.

The 1,5 litre left in the kettle is set to 1,5 litre in the "loss to trub and chilling".

Edit: The only thing I have not measured is the absoption. I'm using the standard which is in BS. I guess maybe I have to brew one more to get that number. But I did only use 4.5 kgs of Maris otter, which isn't a huge amount, so I don't think the absorbtion could accumulate for such a loss in water?

Does it have something to do with grain weight basis in the mash profile?

I had it se to 4,5 kgs. and If i add 1,5 kilos to that the sparge amount is close to spot on, but then the water mash volume is getting to low. I have it set to 2.5 liters / kilo

Smellyglove said:

Does it have something to do with grain weight basis in the mash profile?

I had it se to 4,5 kgs. and If i add 1,5 kilos to that the sparge amount is close to spot on, but then the water mash volume is getting to low. I have it set to 2.5 liters / kilo

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It looks like 'grain weight basis' is dependent on the actual grain weight in the recipe. They're all set to 10 and that number changes automatically when you use the mash profile in a recipe.

jeremy0209 said:

It looks like 'grain weight basis' is dependent on the actual grain weight in the recipe. They're all set to 10 and that number changes automatically when you use the mash profile in a recipe.

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I read about it in the help file, but I didn't get much wiser. But, if i set the grain weight basis to 6 (kgs), Then the sparge volume is not far off from what we used, but then it removes 1.25 litres of water for the mash. I don't get this. Is this a number i should change then? I still don't understand what it does.

2,5 litres pr kg grain should still be 2,5 liters pr kg grain.. im confused.

I'm giving up. Gonna do some more brews and see if i'll get some different number from them.