Beersmith and Batch Sparging - Why so many steps???

As the subject says - for anyone else out there who use Beer Smith and batch sparges, have you noticed that it tends to recommend sometimes 4 and 5 step batch sparges?

On my first few brews with BS, I ignored what BS said and combined those steps into my own standard two step batch sparge. My efficiciency wasn't great - but that was definitely down to issues with my grain crush.

I've since gotten my own mill, and I've just about nailed down a good crush with that. This weekend, I figured what the heck, and followed exactly the batch sparge plan laid out by BS - a four stage batch sparge. Now, I allow that this could have to do with my crush still improving, but my efficiency gained another 3 points.

So - does anyone else have similar results to share, or have folks been doing like I did previously and ignoring the seemingly excessive multiple steps recommended by BS?

 

I've only seen as many as three steps on my Beersmith. Maybe it has something to do with mash tun size. I have a 12 gallon mash tun.

I used to ignore them and just do one batch sparge, but one day I decided to follow Beersmith's advice and broke the sparge up into multiple sparges. Bam! Extra three points of efficiency, just like you had.

But yeah, sometimes Beersmith gives you a ridiculous sparge, like .10 gallons for the first sparge. Usually I just ignore all tiny sparges like that.

 

I think it has to do with your mash settings. i.e "Fill to x% of mash tun" . I set mine so I get 2 sparges.

 

You must have your equipment set up in there properly and make sure you have that setup selected in the recipe.

If you drain the mash tun before sparging, then make sure you edit the mash profile to do this.

Then you can set it to sparge in equal amounts and adjust the % of mash tun size until you get the number of sparges you want.

Personally I think that it would be nice to have a check box to select the number of sparges you want and then let BS tell you if you have exceeded the mash tun's volume, but this way works too.

 

completely agree with this.

 

I'll go digging for this, but those settings don't ring any bells. Where, in BS 2.0, would I find this?

In this weekend's brew, for instance: I definitely set up the volume of my mash tun correctly, and I tweaked the mash thickness in the mash profile, but that's all I can remember seeing... BS gave me a "5-step mash profile", step 1 was to drain the mash tun, and steps 2-4 were each to sparge with 2.45 gallons. Interestingly, there were no more steps to drain the sparge water - it struck me as funny that the initial lauter is not assumed, but each one afterward is.

 

On the mash screen just above the the window where it tells you the amount of sparge water needed

 

There's a little square next to the drop down menu, click it and that's where you'll find the settings described above (drain, sparge equal amounts)