I've been brewing for awhile but lately I feel like BeerSmith is telling me to add too much starting water. I do full volume BIAB and today when I brewed, at the end of mash, I had about 0.4 gal too much wort and my gravity was about 0.005 under target. And my grain still had more liquid I could have drained off. So I boiled a bit before adding the hops and I got down to about 0.1-0.2 gal too much wort, but my gravity was about 0.003 above target. So I copied the recipe and I assumed I should increase my brewhouse efficiency, but BS still said to add the same amount of starting water. I tried changing the water to add and water/grain ratio, but they just change back after I hit okay. How do I tell BS to add less starting water?
BeerSmith - too much calculated starting water needed - how to adjust?
- Thread starter mtnagel
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
VikeMan
It ain't all burritos and strippers, my friend.
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2010
- Messages
- 5,853
- Reaction score
- 5,970
I'm not a BS user, but the answer to the volume issue would have to be somewhere in your brewhouse parameters (or whatever BS calls them). I'd be taking a look at your boil-off rate parameter and your grain absorption parameter and make sure they match what you actually see with your process. Also, since you do BIAB, make sure your Mash Tun Dead Space (or similar) and Mash Tun to Kettle Transfer Losses (or similar) are set to 0.
Everything was set correctly except what I was missing was the grain absorption setting, which I had to google to find out that it's buried in the advanced settings, which is why I had never seen it. Lowering it does in fact lower my starting water volume so I'll have to play around with that. Thanks!
So I found a post about grain absorption on the beersmith forums and calculated mine:
starting water vol = 6.25 gal
vol after draining = 5.8 gal
water absorbed in grains = 0.45 gal
total grain weight =10.7 lbs
Converting to oz = 0.3368 fl oz/oz
The default in BS is 0.586. No clue why my absorption would be ~60% of the default. I do squeeze the bag, but I didn't even get all the liquid out this time. Bizarre.
starting water vol = 6.25 gal
vol after draining = 5.8 gal
water absorbed in grains = 0.45 gal
total grain weight =10.7 lbs
Converting to oz = 0.3368 fl oz/oz
The default in BS is 0.586. No clue why my absorption would be ~60% of the default. I do squeeze the bag, but I didn't even get all the liquid out this time. Bizarre.
You need to get your equipment profile set up correctly. Below is a screen shot of the equipment profile page from BeerSmith 3:
The important values to get correct on this page are the volumes and boil off rate. "Brewhouse Efficiency" on this page is just what will be used as the default in a recipe that uses this equipment profile, but you will be able to (and should) change it for each recipe on the recipe input page. You should set your "Mash Tun Volume" and "Mash Tun Weight", which should be your BK for single vessel BIAB. Mash Tun Weight is needed for accurate strike water temp calculations. "Recoverable Mash Deadspace" and "Mash Deadspace Losses" should both be 0 for single vessel BIAB.
"Batch Volume" is your target volume to your fermenter. The volume you use here is just the defaut when entering new recipes, and you will be able to change it when you enter the recipe ("Batch Size" on the recipe page.) "Fermenter Loss" isn't really used in the volume calculations (but you should know it for planning purposes), since volume calculations all start with "Batch Volume/Size."
"Loss to Trub and Chiller" is the volume that will be added to your target "Batch Volume" to get your target post-boil volume, so this value needs to be correct.
"Boil Off" multiplied by "Boil Time" (converted to hours) gives you the volume that is added to your target post-boil volume to give you your target pre-boil volume. Again this value needs to be accurate. You will have the chance to adjust your boil time when you enter a recipe, so you should check the "Use boil off as hourly rate" and "Calculate Boil Vol Automatically" boxes, so that BS automatically calculates the total boil off for whatever boil time you set in the recipe.
Your strike water volume (for no-sparge BIAB) is calculated as:
Grain Absorption Rate should be set to what your specific process provides, but unfortunately the setting for this is well hidden. You find it under "Tools -> Options -> Advanced" as "BIAB Grain Absorb", and to make maters worse BS wants the value input in "fl oz/oz", when the values you measure for your system are in gal/lb. To convert gal/lb to fl oz/oz, multiply by 8. To convert the other way divide by 8. The default value for BIAB Grain Absorb is 0.586 fl oz/oz, or 0.07325 gal/lb. The default is probably a little on the low side if you don't squeeze, and possibly on the high side if you do squeeze.
Brew on
The important values to get correct on this page are the volumes and boil off rate. "Brewhouse Efficiency" on this page is just what will be used as the default in a recipe that uses this equipment profile, but you will be able to (and should) change it for each recipe on the recipe input page. You should set your "Mash Tun Volume" and "Mash Tun Weight", which should be your BK for single vessel BIAB. Mash Tun Weight is needed for accurate strike water temp calculations. "Recoverable Mash Deadspace" and "Mash Deadspace Losses" should both be 0 for single vessel BIAB.
"Batch Volume" is your target volume to your fermenter. The volume you use here is just the defaut when entering new recipes, and you will be able to change it when you enter the recipe ("Batch Size" on the recipe page.) "Fermenter Loss" isn't really used in the volume calculations (but you should know it for planning purposes), since volume calculations all start with "Batch Volume/Size."
"Loss to Trub and Chiller" is the volume that will be added to your target "Batch Volume" to get your target post-boil volume, so this value needs to be correct.
"Boil Off" multiplied by "Boil Time" (converted to hours) gives you the volume that is added to your target post-boil volume to give you your target pre-boil volume. Again this value needs to be accurate. You will have the chance to adjust your boil time when you enter a recipe, so you should check the "Use boil off as hourly rate" and "Calculate Boil Vol Automatically" boxes, so that BS automatically calculates the total boil off for whatever boil time you set in the recipe.
Your strike water volume (for no-sparge BIAB) is calculated as:
Strike Volume = "Recoverable Mash Deadspace" + "Mash Deadspace Losses" + Grain Weight * Grain Absorption Rate + Pre-Boil Volume
Since for single vessel BIAB the first two items in the formula above should be 0, the strike volume formula reduces to:Strike Volume = Grain Weight * "Grain Absorption Rate" + Pre-Boil Volume
There is no default for Grain Weight, as that is specific to each recipe.Grain Absorption Rate should be set to what your specific process provides, but unfortunately the setting for this is well hidden. You find it under "Tools -> Options -> Advanced" as "BIAB Grain Absorb", and to make maters worse BS wants the value input in "fl oz/oz", when the values you measure for your system are in gal/lb. To convert gal/lb to fl oz/oz, multiply by 8. To convert the other way divide by 8. The default value for BIAB Grain Absorb is 0.586 fl oz/oz, or 0.07325 gal/lb. The default is probably a little on the low side if you don't squeeze, and possibly on the high side if you do squeeze.
Brew on
Last edited:
Yep, thanks @doug293cz ! As mentioned, I had everything dialed in, except the grain absorption. I've updated that so the next recipe should be closer to my process. I also added it to my spreadsheet so I'll start tracking it with every batch to see how much it changes batch to batch.
Just like equipment profiles you should also learn how to customize your mash profiles. Beersmith is not a cookie cutter piece of software. You need to customize to your way of brewing to make it work for you. Most of the profiles provided in the software are user submitted and should be viewed as quick-start models you can use to create your own. Here is a tutorial for setting up a BIAB mash profile...
