Finalizing my first all-grain-Centennial Blonde

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Q2XL

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Here is a photo of my BrewSheet form Beersmith. I am really trying to get a lot of information about all-grain and Beersmith. I used 60% efficiency because this is my first and did not want to shoot too high. Anyways, here it is. Any suggestions or thoughts. Does this seem right?



Centennial-Blonde-All-Grain.jpg
 
just out of curiousity, why would you batch sparge 2x with 2 different amounts? if you were batch sparging twice, wouldn't you just divide by 2 for your water quantity?
 
Yeah, it looks nice. If it were me, I might up that last Cascade addition just a bit to get a little more aroma, though that might really not be to style. Best of luck.
 
Your strike water temperature seems low. I would go around 168- 170. It is easier to cool the mash than to heat the whole thing up a few degrees.

I always heat the first sparge to 180-185. This will raise the grain bed temp into the 160's.

Preheat the cooler in some way to avoid temp loss at mash time.
 
Yeah, BS defaults to 168 sparge temp and that weird batch sparge split.

I always take the total batch sparge amount and split it in half, and then heat the sparge water to 185.

Those two changes took my efficiency from 60% to 75%.
 
just out of curiousity, why would you batch sparge 2x with 2 different amounts? if you were batch sparging twice, wouldn't you just divide by 2 for your water quantity?

Beersmith defaults to batch sparge the maximum the MLT will hold on the first round and the remaining water the second. You can change to equal volumes by adjusting the batch sparge options.
 
Yeah, BS defaults to 168 sparge temp and that weird batch sparge split.

I always take the total batch sparge amount and split it in half, and then heat the sparge water to 185.

Those two changes took my efficiency from 60% to 75%.

Thanks for the input guys. I do like Beersmith but their default numbers seem strange to me most of the time.

Strike water at 161.4F...That doesn't make sense. But for some reason Beersmith keeps on giving me that temp.

The division of the sparge water in 2 different size batches. That is strange too.

I think Beersmith could be improved in many different ways.
 
I always heat the first sparge to 180-185. This will raise the grain bed temp into the 160's.


What is the reason to raise the grain bed to temp to the 160's? I am sure that I have read the answer to that somewhere, but there is an awful lot of beer information in my head floating around. Soon enough all of that info will become understandable to me.
 
The wort becomes less viscous, and the sugars are most soluble, so you maximize efficiency. You can also perform a mash-out at that temperature to stop the enzymatic activity so you don't keep converting when you don't want to while sparging (more of an issue w/ fly).
 
I have learned to trust Beersmith. I used to question some of the numbers until I found out I was always wrong.
 
Strike water at 161.4F...That doesn't make sense. But for some reason Beersmith keeps on giving me that temp.

I think Beersmith could be improved in many different ways.

Beersmith just needs to be fine tuned and tweaked to match your system and processes.

The strike temp of 161.4 can perhaps be caused by 2 or 3 things that I can think of at the moment.

Look under the mash tab within your recipe. (Image #1 and Image #2)
Not having the little tab ADJUST FOR EQUIPMENT checked will make it default to 161.4 degrees for a strike temperature.

Check the mash profile that you are using to make sure that the desired mash temp is accurate. (Image #3)

The other place(s) to look are on the mash page and see what the "grain temperature" is set to. (Image #2)

Also, look in your equipment profile and make sure that it matches your equipment.

In summary, beersmith either thinks your grain temperature is higher than it really is OR
beersmith thinks that your equipment and grain is absorbing less heat from the mash water than it really is.

Simple solution is mentioned already.
Add water to cooler at around 175 to 180 and then stir until it gets down to strike temps, usually around 165 and then add grain and stir to get to mash temps.

Easy peesy.

As far as BeerSmith being perfect, it simply IS NOT right out of the gate. It takes several (MANY) brew day to fine tune and personalize it to your equipment profile. You have to teach the program how your brewday flows and give it the information it needs to guide you in your journey. It needs to know information about your cooler and the absorption of the cooler when you dump hot water in.
It needs to know what temperature your grains are at BEFORE you add hot water.
( without this information, BS has no way of accurately spitting out truly valuable information to help you.)

EDIT**- I went into Beersmith to check and verify what I had told you. Updated my post to reflect this.

mash tab.PNG


mash2.PNG


mash3.PNG
 
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