First AG brew a few problems

I think I have Identified my problems however I haven't totally made solutions for next time. Problems occurred during the mash and sparge. Brewsmith calculated I needed 8 gallons for a 5.5 gallon 90 min boil. By doing this (a) it threw off my pre boil gravity (b) took forever to boil down to get somewhere in the neighborhood of my OG. Has anyone had this happen to before? Thanks w

you can edit your equipment profile and boil off rate in beersmith to match your individual equipment, the parameters already in the program are common equipment profiles with average numbers plugged in. everybody's equipment is a little different. example a 40qt tall and narrow kettle will have less evaporation and heat loss than a 40 qt short and fat kettle. ie two different brewers select profile (40 qt kettle 10 gallon cooler tun) will then end up with two different sets of numbers with essentially the same equipment.

You do need to tweak your equipment profile but you are discussing two different things.

Your pre-boil gravity should tell you how well your mash converted so how was this "thrown off" as it may or may not have to do with your volume of water. How much strike/sparge water did you use and at what temp did you mash?

The 8 gallons of pre-boil volume sounds about right for a 90 minute boil. What is your boil off rate, it should be at least 1 gallon per hour and it could be more. There is alos absorption from the grain as well as tun/kettle loss to figure in as well.

As for boil down, did you get your post boil volume and for how long did you have to boil?

Rowdy said:

you can edit your equipment profile and boil off rate in beersmith to match your individual equipment, the parameters already in the program are common equipment profiles with average numbers plugged in. everybody's equipment is a little different. example a 40qt tall and narrow kettle will have less evaporation and heat loss than a 40 qt short and fat kettle. ie two different brewers select profile (40 qt kettle 10 gallon cooler tun) will then end up with two different sets of numbers with essentially the same equipment.

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Where in brewsmith can thus adjustment be made.

I never got to my target gravity the beer was supposed to hit 1.077 and hit 1.062. My boil off rate is near 1 gallon per hour. When I used another calculation it stated 7.35 gallons for the boil. My original calculations that I have been told before were batch 1.25*lbs= number of quarts and sparge is difference from the first running from the target starting water. My calculations I figured starting the boil with around 7.3 gallons for a 90 minute boil to hit 5.5 gallons.

breweringbeaz said:

Where in brewsmith can thus adjustment be made.

Click to expand...

(profiles tab, equipment tab, add equipment. for beersmith 2)

(view tab, equipment tab, new equipment. for older versions)

you can then select and input numbers for your exact equipment

Thanks-- I had it listed as 10 gallon pot 10 gallon mash tun cooler option I believe. Would the changing the option make that big of a difference in the calculated efficency?

dialing in your equipment will certainly help with your volume issues, but efficiency is a whole other can of worms. i didnt pick out the efficiency question out of the first post lol. we first have to know more about your mash, sparge, temps, equipment, even grain bill, etc to start hashing out efficiency ..

Rowdy said:

dialing in your equipment will certainly help with your volume issues, but efficiency is a whole other can of worms. i didnt pick out the efficiency question out of the first post lol. we first have to know more about your mash, sparge, temps, equipment, even grain bill, etc to start hashing out efficiency ..

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Again thanks it was first a weekend of firsts -- first AG, first boil over, another boil over with after adding hops), first time missing OG, oh and let's not forget about the airlock overflow

breweringbeaz said:

Thanks-- I had it listed as 10 gallon pot 10 gallon mash tun cooler option I believe. Would the changing the option make that big of a difference in the calculated efficency?

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Everything the BS does is based upon your equipment profile so if you are in fact using a 10 gallon kettle and 10 gallon mash tun then it's just a matter of tweaking the few variables in the set up that you access as stated previously.

Next brew session be sure to take notes pertaining to the variables in the set up such as boil off, kettle loss and tun loss and be sure you have the batch size you are shooting for listed as most default to 5 gallons, not 5.5.

When you complete your brew day go back and tweak the values and you should be good to go