Anvil Foundry w/Beer Smith

[capt_yo55arian]

I think I'm in the right place... Complete n00b wanting to get the first brew right.
Plugged in the recipe to Beer Smith (10lbs Grain, Anvil Foundry 10.5 profile), and it is telling me to add 12.5 strike water (3.125 gallons) and 4.39 sparge. I noticed in the booklet it suggests 5.8 gallons strike and a gallon sparge. Am I doing this wrong? Don't wanna mess this up too much, and figured that Beer Smith would be a good resource, but maybe I am over thinking this... Any help would be appreciated. (I've attached the recipe created by Brew Smith)

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[Sammy86]

I think I'm in the right place... Complete n00b wanting to get the first brew right.
Plugged in the recipe to Beer Smith (10lbs Grain, Anvil Foundry 10.5 profile), and it is telling me to add 12.5 strike water (3.125 gallons) and 4.39 sparge. I noticed in the booklet it suggests 5.8 gallons strike and a gallon sparge. Am I doing this wrong? Don't wanna mess this up too much, and figured that Beer Smith would be a good resource, but maybe I am over thinking this... Any help would be appreciated. (I've attached the recipe created by Brew Smith)View attachment 693529)

You could mash with more and sparge with less...might get a little drop on efficiency but I don't believe it will hurt you that badly.

You have to test it a little bit, trial and error until you can get the correct amount of water.

 

[capt_yo55arian]

Thanks. Just a little apprehensive on first brew... Had a recommendation of always go w/ 4 gallons strike on the Anvil, and sparge w/ 3-4 gallons. I think I was looking at Beer Smith like gospel, and it turns out that might not be the case...

It's becoming clear that this might be trial and error, appreciate the response.

 

[Sammy86]

Thanks. Just a little apprehensive on first brew... Had a recommendation of always go w/ 4 gallons strike on the Anvil, and sparge w/ 3-4 gallons. I think I was looking at Beer Smith like gospel, and it turns out that might not be the case...

It's becoming clear that this might be trial and error, appreciate the response.

No problem! It will honestly take a couple of brews to figure out what works for you and your efficiency...I just did my first brew on my Brewzilla and made sure to take notes so I could input the info into BS to get more accurate water calculations.

 

[AkTom]

I got my 10,5 and haven’t had time to fire it up... I plan on doing 2 simple (same) beers. One like Anvil recommends, and one with more sparge to see how they compare... who knows? Maybe someone will chime in before I have 10 gallons of the same beer.

 

[capt_yo55arian]

Yes! I think I'm gonna play it safe and go w/ Anvil recommendations... Following brew, go a little more on sparge. Plan to get at it his weekend, fingers crossed. I think I was being a little cute w/ Beer Smith for not even using the Foundry yet....

 

[myndflyte]

You'll want to use more than 3 gallons to mash. You need to keep in mind there is like a gallon of dead space below the malt pipe. With 10lb of grain, just add up your mash and spare volume and then just subtract 1 gallon and use that for your mash and sparge with 1 gallon.

I think for larger grain build, you could get away with sparging with 1.5 or 2 gallons.

 

[Oginme]

The Anvil recommendations are pretty basic and generic. When you start using brewing software and customize the equipment profile to the way you want to brew, you will get more accurate and consistent results. For every 100 brewers there are about 120 different ways they brew. (OK, there may be more ways that they brew than that, but you get the point.) And they all make beer.

Use whichever source you want, but measure your water in, pre-boil volume and gravity, post boil volume volume and gravity, volume to the fermenter and your process losses and you will be able to plug that into the software to tune it to your process and procedures.

 

[capt_yo55arian]

Thanks for the replies, everyone. Excited to get this under my belt this weekend.

 

[Knightshade]

I did my first brew w/mine a couple weeks ago and went super simple w/no sparge recommendations out of the book. Hit every damn number on the spot. Seemed a little too easy.

Wait..that was over a month ago. Haven't brewed again since..yeesh. Hopefully changing this weekend.

Good luck w/your brew day!

 

[LokiM4]

The Anvil recommendations are pretty basic and generic. When you start using brewing software and customize the equipment profile to the way you want to brew, you will get more accurate and consistent results. For every 100 brewers there are about 120 different ways they brew. (OK, there may be more ways that they brew than that, but you get the point.) And they all make beer.

Use whichever source you want, but measure your water in, pre-boil volume and gravity, post boil volume volume and gravity, volume to the fermenter and your process losses and you will be able to plug that into the software to tune it to your process and procedures.

Oginme hot on a lot of my thoughts.

mom addition you have to realize that BeerSmith doesn’t know your using a Foundry-you have to tell it what your brewing “profile” is , once you figure out hot to input the info on the Foundry into BeerSmith itcan then be modified to use the Anvil method or thru trial and errors hybrid of the two of you’re choosing-all of course to get a process that works for you.

 

[capt_yo55arian]

Completely understandable. I guess I was under the impression that the Anvil Foundry Profile in Beer Smith would be sort of a catch-all, but it looks like I will need to modify it to fit my brew day.

 

[mbg]

I've been brewing for long time but only recently purchased a 10.5 gallon Foundry. I have two brews under my belt and I too did no-sparge to see where I was at. On both brews I was at about 68% BHE.

The Anvil instructions are made simple for all grain beginners - thus 1 gal. sparge for all grain bills. I have messed around with BS inputs and have come up with a setting that adjusts for grain bill. I also played around with BS and created a new schedule to duplicate a multi-temp mash schedule I found someone on the FB group used on BrewFather.

I haven't brewed with them yet so I hesitate but maybe I can share them somehow and others can help tweak them?

Mike

 

[Oginme]

Oginme hot on a lot of my thoughts.

mom addition you have to realize that BeerSmith doesn’t know your using a Foundry-you have to tell it what your brewing “profile” is , once you figure out hot to input the info on the Foundry into BeerSmith itcan then be modified to use the Anvil method or thru trial and errors hybrid of the two of you’re choosing-all of course to get a process that works for you.

No software has a clue what you brew on until you give it the information it needs. Likewise, the Anvil recommendations don't account for my grain absorption very well nor trub losses.

 

[rjhoff]

Beersmith always gives me a grist ratio (qt water/lb grain) of 1.7, which works well for me. I’ll drop it to 1.6 for big grain bills. Agree with other posters here, you need to edit the equipment profile to dial it in for your preferences.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

anyone have this info for the 10.5, just bought one and want to add a profile for Brewersfriend
Grain Absorption Looses
Mash Tun dead space loss
Boil off losses per hour
Boil Kettle dead space loss
Hops absorption losses
Other losses/shrinkage etc

 

[Knightshade]

anyone have this info for the 10.5, just bought one and want to add a profile for Brewersfriend
Grain Absorption Looses
Mash Tun dead space loss
Boil off losses per hour
Boil Kettle dead space loss
Hops absorption losses
Other losses/shrinkage etc

Brewer's Friend has a profile for the 10.5 already in their database. Unfortunately...and as frustrating as this may sound, you'll need to tweak it based on how you brew, your processes etc. I'm still tweaking mine, but I don't really know WTH I'm doing either.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

hi, thanks, could you point me to the public profiles, funny I was a volunteer teacher on how to use brewers friend but I've been away for several years and things have changed

 

[Knightshade]

Make sure you're logged in. My Brewing, My Equipment will lead you to this page.

Click on the Add Profile button, and you'll see below. Change the name from "New Profile" to whatever suits you and under Brand you'll find Anvil Foundry. Some of the numbers will already be populated after you select it.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

thanks, tried that, nothing prepopulated, there is an update coming soon, I can wait

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

found it you have to add your Mash-Tun Volume then click reset values

 

[GPNewBrew]

Back to OP’s question - I have a 6.5, not a 10, but I have not had great success with any amount of Sparge process on the 6.5, when using the Malt pipe. As an earlier post mentioned, you have to consider all the deadspace you have around and under the malt pipe when you calculate strike and sparge water requirements. With the 6.5, I factor in about 1.5 gallons of deadspace. This is the amount of space inside the Anvil but outside the malt pipe that your mash is never going to touch. If you don’t have this deadspace factored in your profile, it will calculate less strike water needed. Therefore, when you mash, you will have a very thick mash that will be difficult to mash properly and homogenize, resulting in poor conversion. Anyhoo, if you compensate for the large deadspace (not mash tun loss, I’m talking recoverable deadspace), you won’t have much sparge water. (Maybe a gallon, which isn’t really enough to accomplish a good sparge and rinsing of sugars from the grain). That is why many will run into poor efficiencies when trying a sparge-based process. In my experience (your mileage may very), I use the Foundry as a EBIAB (Full Volume, No Sparge) system, and just use more grain to make up for efficiency losses that naturally having with no sparge.