AG Water Question

I am brewing my first all grain tomorrow and was wondering where I could find the most accurate water calculator. I use beersmith2 software and have compared with others online and get different results? I know there are certain factors involved like what equipment you use, dead space, cooling loss etc...but since I have not used my equipment, I am not sure. I was also wondering what most of you do as far as measuring your water. Say your recipe calls for 4.67 gal. of mash water....do you guys just round up to 5 gal. or eye ball a little over 4.5 or do you break it down and put in exactly what it calls for?? (I dont have much for measuring except for a 4 cup measuring cup and my 10 gal. brew kettle that has the gallons marked on it). Also wondering if there are any preferences on the best water to buy at the store since my tap water is horrible. Any help appreciated.

Customize your beersmith equipment profile and you should be good to go. There is a video on the website showing you how to do so. What I would do (and did do) is run everything through your system with water to test out dead space, evaporation rate, ect...

I'm pretty lax with my water measurement. The way I do my strike water is to play with the water/grain ratio in beersmith until I get a nice even number like 4.5 or five gallons. This makes it easier to measure. Then I just use a bunch of sparge water and go until I have my boil volume. Not scientific but it works.

I have put in all of my equipment measurments in beersmith. Everytime I switch pages (go from the recipe page to the Mash profile page) and go back to the Mash/Water page, my strike water amount changes a little bit. Any idea on why this is happening? I wanted to use the formula of 1.25qts/lb of grain and it gives me 17.41 something liters which translates into 4.6 something gallons...(not sure exactly since I do not have access to my recipe while at work). I see your solution with altering the grain/water ratio to get an even number but my question is, is if you start messing with the grain/water ratio, won't that mess up what you are trying to aim for in the amount of sugars you are trying to extract? Maybe i'll just eyeball and see how it turns out.

I use beersmith for everything but calculating water additions and adjustments. I do these in the Bru'n Water spreadsheet. It is available for free download here.

jgoodhart said:

I wanted to use the formula of 1.25qts/lb of grain and it gives me 17.41 something liters which translates into 4.6 something gallons...(not sure exactly since I do not have access to my recipe while at work). I see your solution with altering the grain/water ratio to get an even number but my question is, is if you start messing with the grain/water ratio, won't that mess up what you are trying to aim for in the amount of sugars you are trying to extract? Maybe i'll just eyeball and see how it turns out.

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So a recipe I'm looking at right now, 1.25/# equals 11.25qts. Bump it up to 1.335 and you get 12qts which is three gallons. Really not much of a difference. Plus whether you're adding or subtracting it comes back or is taken out in the sparge water. I don't think it will affect your amount of sugars but there is some thought out there that it may affect fermentability slightly.