Dead space in boil kettle and efficiency

[Durso81]

So I use Beersmith to make my recipes. I have a converted keg for a boil kettle. So my question is let's say your brewing a 5 gallon batch. So you boil kettle has .50 gallons of deadspace so you make up for this deadspace in your recipe. So technically when your boil is done you technically have 5.5 left in your boil kettle cause of deadspace. So can having this much deadspace effect your gravity since technically you didn't boil down to 5 gallons?

 

[DanH]

Yes, but I account for that in beersmith by simply adding the BK dead space to my brewing profile/settings.


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[DanH]

I assume if you were brewing a kit it would water it down slightly.


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[helibrewer]

So I use Beersmith to make my recipes. I have a converted keg for a boil kettle. So my question is let's say your brewing a 5 gallon batch. So you boil kettle has .50 gallons of deadspace so you make up for this deadspace in your recipe. So technically when your boil is done you technically have 5.5 left in your boil kettle cause of deadspace. So can having this much deadspace effect your gravity since technically you didn't boil down to 5 gallons?

BeerSmith should account for this in the recipe calculations if you have your equipment setup correctly.

 

[Durso81]

Not brewing a kit. I just recently switched over to the keggle. I do have the deadspace inputed in my equipment profile, wasn't sure if it calculated the gravity portion for the deadspace. I know it calculates volume for the deadspace. Thanks for all responses so far.

 

[acidrain]

Yes, but there is a slight glitch in the BS software... it doesn't update automatically. In other words, when you make a change in your equipment, and therefor change your equipment profile, it won't actually change anything in the recipe until you change from one profile to another, and then back again in the recipe.
So, change your equipment profile and save it, open a recipe, click on equipment, change the equipment profile to one other than yours, click OK, then open the equipment profiles again, click on your profile, click OK, and it will adjust the recipe.
For example, if you changed the efficiency in your equipment profile, and do as described above, it will actually add or subtract grain as needed to keep the taste and style the same per efficiency.
Same with dead space, it will adjust your volumes so you get your batch size.
Note that batch size is not the same as bottling size unless you have racking loss set to zero.

 

[Durso81]

Yes, but there is a slight glitch in the BS software... it doesn't update automatically. In other words, when you make a change in your equipment, and therefor change your equipment profile, it won't actually change anything in the recipe until you change from one profile to another, and then back again in the recipe.
So, change your equipment profile and save it, open a recipe, click on equipment, change the equipment profile to one other than yours, click OK, then open the equipment profiles again, click on your profile, click OK, and it will adjust the recipe.
For example, if you changed the efficiency in your equipment profile, and do as described above, it will actually add or subtract grain as needed to keep the taste and style the same per efficiency.
Same with dead space, it will adjust your volumes so you get your batch size.
Note that batch size is not the same as bottling size unless you have racking loss set to zero.

Thanks will do this. Yup know about the batch size.

 

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

I also find that ver 2.2 doesn't calculate total water correctly. I had to add several extra liters to the "dead space" section to compensate.

 

[HumulusHead]

BS just needs to become a little more dynamic. More than once I have caught the software not automatically updating after I update profiles for deadspace, volumes, etc

Though the deadspace input is really helpful and it does adjust the gravity accordingly

 

[ChuckO]

BS just needs to become a little more dynamic. More than once I have caught the software not automatically updating after I update profiles for deadspace, volumes, etc

Though the deadspace input is really helpful and it does adjust the gravity accordingly

I'm glad that BeerSmith isn't dynamic about changing recipes based upon equipment profile. If it changed a past recipe in my brewing log I wouldn't know what I had done previously. When I make a change to an equipment profile I want that to appear in the future. Since I didn't use that exact equipment in the past I don't want history changed.

 

[HumulusHead]

I'm glad that BeerSmith isn't dynamic about changing recipes based upon equipment profile. If it changed a past recipe in my brewing log I wouldn't know what I had done previously. When I make a change to an equipment profile I want that to appear in the future. Since I didn't use that exact equipment in the past I don't want history changed.

That is a good point. I guess I did not think of that. I have my older recipes in BS that were used with older equipment setups. I would like that to stay shown that way for the future when i look back.

I guess i just wish BS could read my mind then and be dynamic only when i need it to be

 

[acidrain]

I'm glad that BeerSmith isn't dynamic about changing recipes based upon equipment profile. If it changed a past recipe in my brewing log I wouldn't know what I had done previously. When I make a change to an equipment profile I want that to appear in the future. Since I didn't use that exact equipment in the past I don't want history changed.

It's the same with any open document... if you made changes to a word document, when you closed it, it would ask you if you wanted to save the changes.
In Excel, if you change a cell, it changes it instantly.
If you wanted to make changes plus save the original, you would change the name, close it, have the original, plus the new doc.
Maybe they could add a check box that asks you if you want to apply changes now.
At any rate, I always make changes, keep the original, plus the new doc.
I do this with recipe changes too.