Beersmith 3 water tab glitch?

[coldrabbit]

Does anyone use the Beersmith 3 water tool?

Something is driving me crazy and I'm hoping someone with more experience can enlighten me. See pics.

When I adjust the mash water and then the sparge water according to the water tool recomendations, the "final water profile" is spot on with my target profile. So far so good. However, when I check the box to "add sparge salts to boil", the "final profile" is way off of my target profile. It's as if adding the sparge salts to the boil does not increase or contribute minerals to the "final profile".

For an experiment, I unchecked the "add sparge salts to boil" box. As expected, the software predicted the final water profile to perfectly match my target profile. Then I deleted the individual sparge salt additions, leaving only the original mash salt additions. Now with only the mash additions the tool predicted a final water profile identical to the the one where I added the sparge salts in the boil.

Can someone explain to me why adding the sparge salts to the boil results in the same final profile as not adding them at all?

 

[Deadalus]

I think you are interpreting the boxes differently than intended. In the Adjusted Water Profiles box, the individual ion boxes represent the target profile composition. Starting with a target profile toggle the Hold Sparge Salts until Boil on and off. Those boxes don't change. What changes is that the salts that where listed as Sparge or Boil under the use column in the Water Adjustment Salts box, those will change values. Also, the Adj. Sparge Water Profile field will change values. If the Hold Sparge Salts Until Boil box is checked, that box should reflect your base water values and if the Hold Sparge Salts Until Boil box is unchecked, the Adj. Sparge Water Profile will match the individual ion boxes. OK now, if you delete or change a sparge value while the Hold Sparge salts is unchecked, the individual boxes do not change as these are calculated on the salt additions where Use=Mash. The adj. Sparge Water Profile will change values however.
Another way to consider it is that there is no final profile calculated. What you are seeing is the approximation to the target profile (see below) and that is specifically for the mash water which is going to be the sum of your base water and mash additions. Also, the adj. Sparge water profile (which changes because if you hold salts until the boil, the sparge water is now different).

One other item to note is that set of values in the six ion boxes may not exactly match the target profile selected because the specific salts used may not be proportionally perfect to create the profile. The target profile receives receives it's individual ions from more than six salts, the water is dissolving rocks in nature. Particularly if chalk is excluded.

I will say I am not an expert on it but hopefully I explained it properly in the way I saw it working while changing the boxes.

 

[coldrabbit]

That is helpful.

Can I get your opinion on something?

When you come up with a water profile for a beer you are brewing, are you targeting the mineral profile of the finished packaged beer? Or are you targeting a mineral profile for your mash and sparge water?

 

[Deadalus]

That is helpful.

Can I get your opinion on something?

When you come up with a water profile for a beer you are brewing, are you targeting the mineral profile of the finished packaged beer? Or are you targeting a mineral profile for your mash and sparge water?

Hmmm I was carefully reading your post and did look at the pictures but I did not see that you were using Beersmith Online. I had your post open (not the pictures) while I was running Beersmith 3 desktop in another window. LOL you were probably wondering WTF six boxes I was talking about! Sorry! I don't have a Water Profile and Analysis subsection with a Final Profile. I have a Water Analysis section but no final profile. Beersmith 3 let's the user add fields to certain tabs so I will look to see if I can do that or try the online version. In Beersmith 3 (desktop) it seems to be targeting the mash water, the sparge water if not holding until boil or the preboil water if holding but I am not 100% sure about the preboil part. The tool changes the salt additions when holding them to the boil and I would think that is because of losses in the mash tun and any other processes involved. I don't think it is targeting the final profile at all given the way the target is entered. I really don't think it works backwards though by attempting to make the final product look like the target water profile. I think that the final profile is just extra information. It would seem like you would want to know the water chemistry of the water involved in the process prior to the process but I'm still learning water chemistry in brewing.

 

[kevin58]

Brad Smith answered this question in the Beersmith forum. Yes, it is an issue that he is aware of. Here is that reply...

" Yes this one is unfortunately on my bug list. It appears that the total water profile at the bottom is displaying the mash water profile and not the overall water profile.

It was corrected in the web based version and also will be fixed with the next set of updates. "

 

[Deadalus]

Thanks for tracking that down @kevin58! I went looking to see if I could add the final water profile but it looks like fields can only be added on the recipe page and not on the water page.