Can Beersmith do volume calcs for no-boil batches (mead, cider, wine)?

[Echoloc8]

I have a funny feeling that this *ought* to work, but so far I've been unable to make it go.

I have SG and other figures for honey and a particular fruit juice that I'm using this weekend to formulate a 3 gallon mead recipe.

Beersmith gives me perfectly cromulent figures for OG and the like, but as an exercise I'd like to know how much water I'll need to top up. I can (and have) done the calcs myself to see what the need will be, but it looks as though Beersmith isn't calculating much that's helpful for this.

I've got the recipe as Extract type with all sugar additions post-boil, and tried equipment profiles with everything zeroed, everything at 3 gallons, 100% boil off loss, -3 gallons trub loss, several combinations, and I seem to get either 0 gallons top-up or 3 gallons.

I'm looking at about a half-gallon of juice and a half-gal of honey, so I know I ought to need about 2 gallons of water. I'm perfectly capable of pouring everything into a fermenter and topping up, but I feel like this is something Beersmith ought to be able to handle -- after all, the volume from liquid extract additions seems to get calculated well, but without a mash or a boil, it seems like the program gets confused, or has no opportunity to do some calc or other.

Has anyone figured this out?

-Rich

 

[Oginme]

I think you will need to create an equipment profile with no boil off losses. Enter the juices in as you have done, as extracts. Set your boil time to 0. At least in a quick check for me, it set the pre-boil and post boil gravity the same. No losses and it brought my water requirements to equal my volume size.

 

[Echoloc8]

Pretty sure I tried this. Boil time was zero for all my attempts, and I saw no difference between entering my fermentables as sugars or extracts. No boiloff loss was the first thing I tried.

Also, I don't want my water to equal my volume size, I want it to be the total volume minus the volumes of the juice and honey. Or am I not understanding you?

-Rich