Beersmith batch sparge water WAY off

[fishslayer]

So I was making a 10 gallon batch yesterday with a big grain bill. 38 Pounds of grain.

THe mash in called for in beersmith 12.8 gallons of water. It seemed pretty thin and I had done this one before and knew that going in.

It told be to use 6.69 gallons of sparge water. Now last time i did this batch it was WAY to much water. I started with 4 gallons and it seemed about right.

Where should I go hunting down in the settings to correct this ?

--Brian

 

[wilserbrewer]

I don't know much about Beersmith, but with 38 lbs of grain and a 10 gallon batch, your grain absorption rate/index will have a tremendous swing in total water required?

Regardless of what beersmith may tell you, I would also perform a simple check during your brew session by measuring your first runnings and subtracting that from your preboil to get sparge volume.

My simple approach using .1 gal / lb of grain gives 3.8 gallons lost to absorption, or 12.8 - 3.8 = 9 gallons first runnings. With a preboil vol. estimated at 12 gallons, that would dictate a 3 gallon sparge.

cheers....that's a big beer!!!

 

[Takuie]

I too have found that part of beersmith a little buggy as well. I just do a little manual math. I find my efficiency level seemed best at 1.3 qt/lb so I just take weight of grain x 1.3 = strike water amount. Then I drain MT, look at how much wort I have and batch sparge the remaining amount, normally in 2 batch sparge sessions. Since doing it this way I hit low-mid 80%.

I never could get this part of beersmith dialed in just right. I did find somewhere on one of the options menus to change from the standard 1.25 qt/lb but changing that option made no reflection on my water amounts so I just do it manually.

 

[chickypad]

You need to give Beersmith the right numbers to calculate with. Check that your boil off rate and all your losses are set correctly - mash tun deadspace, trub loss, etc. The one thing that can still be a problem is that it won't let you set a sparge when doing BIAB. The work around I've found is to use a regular batch sparge profile and set the default grain absorption to the BIAB level. That can be a pain though if you brew more than one method and switch back and forth.

 

[Beernik]

You need to give Beersmith the right numbers to calculate with. Check that your boil off rate and all your losses are set correctly - mash tun deadspace, trub loss, etc. The one thing that can still be a problem is that it won't let you set a sparge when doing BIAB. The work around I've found is to use a regular batch sparge profile and set the default grain absorption to the BIAB level. That can be a pain though if you brew more than one method and switch back and forth.

It's good to know this about Beersmith. I've been thinking of making the switch from BrewPal, especially after my latest brew. I was planning to making 8 gallons and ended up with 9.5 gallons because the default grain absorption is way off for BIAB and BrewPal won't let you adjust it.

Luckily for me, my first using my grain mill saved my bacon with dramatically improved efficiency.

 

[chickypad]

The best BIAB calculator I've seen is this one that @pricelessbrewing has on his site. I started with Beersmith so that's what I'm sticking with, and I like it for recipe formulation, logging batches, etc., but there are a few things it either doesn't do well or are cumbersome.
Sorry OP, got off topic a bit.

 

[benzesp]

I have the same issue. I manually check it every time in case it freaks out and gives me bogus volumes. I use a custom gear profile and it sometimes gives me way too little sparge.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

Thanks for the shoutout. Like many others, I found beersmiths volume calculator to be very cumbersome to setup, and I don't want to go through the process of changing it everytime I have to make an adjustment due to mash volume being too large, having to sparge, or using a different pot.

So I made http://pricelessbrewing.github.io/BiabCalc/ Give it a shot, only takes about 30-60 seconds to set up if you know all your constraints and will give you a few points of information that no other software does besides the Biabacus, which requires far more user input!

 

[chickypad]

So I made http://pricelessbrewing.github.io/BiabCalc/ Give it a shot, only takes about 30-60 seconds to set up if you know all your constraints and will give you a few points of information that no other software does besides the Biabacus, which requires far more user input!

BTW, if I haven't said it before thanks for publishing your calculator. Seems a number of them assume full volume mash, for those of us with pot size constraints it's nice to be able to include the sparge.

And it seems like I've officially derailed your thread OP, I think you are not even a BIAB'er. Sorry! :cross:

 

[fishslayer]

No worries... I just can't figure out how it is SO off. It seems to be more off the larger the grain bill.

I bet it is the absorption rate...

 

[tracer]

Click on options then click on advance options. Look at grain absorption factory setting is .9600 . I do batch sparge and have it set to .7400, at this setting you have to get all the wort out of the MLT or you will come up short for the boil. You may have to put in a number some where in between to get what you want.
Tom

 

[hottpeper13]

I just use the formulas in How To Brew and am spot on every time,hit my numbers and the beer is very tasty,which is what we're after.

 

[fishslayer]

Thanks tracer... I think I'll play with this setting until it matches my last 3 batch numbers

 

[Oginme]

Thanks tracer... I think I'll play with this setting until it matches my last 3 batch numbers

You can dial this in pretty quickly by measuring your water volumes in and out of the mash. Correct the volume for temperature, subtract out any dead space left by your mash tun and the difference is the amount of water left in the grain. Divide this number by the amount of grain to get your grain absorption figure.

It will vary just a little bit with higher grain bills, but once you have a base figure in BeerSmith that matches the majority of what you brew, the difference is pretty small.

For me it is less than .012 oz of water/oz of grain when going to my highest grain bill, which is less than a 3% error in water retention.