beersmith newb needs some help

[lpdb185]

actually, i'm new to all of this. i got beersmith since i want to go ag pretty soon. in the meantime, i'm still doing extract. anyway, i read about doing full boil with extract recipes. i know the hop utilization will be better with full boil and necessitate less hops. my question is, how do i figure the difference in required hops with beersmith. in another thread, someone was using beersmith to adjust the hops for another member's extract recipe. how do i do that?

this confusion may be further complicated by the fact that i have no idea how the hell to use beersmith yet.

am i asking too much?

 

[weirdboy]

You need to change your equipment to see the difference in full boil vs. partial boil.

 

[lpdb185]

okay, not sure how i'm supposed to do that. i entered a sample recipe (iipa that i just brewed. set it for 5 gallon pot and manually set the boil volume to 2.5 gallons. there is a tab at the top labeled "scale". i can click on that and select a bigger pot, but they all result in different boil volumes and hop amounts. is that what you're talking about?

 

[Reelale]

I don't have access to the program here, but I think there is an "Equipment" option, tab, or menu item. Might be under tools. Click on "My equipment" and change the options there to match your equipment. Then save that with the default file name or name it what you want.

 

[Yooper]

What I do is just type in the recipe, and then change the boil volume to see the hops changes. Does that make sense? For example, my default setting is a 5.25 gallon batch and a 6.25 boil, with the all-grain setting. To see the IBUs in other types, I change the type to "extract" and then change the boil volume. Then the IBUs change radically, and I change them to where I want them.

If you want, I could attach a BSM file here for you to see what I mean if that will help. You have to have Beersmith on the computer to see it, so I can't do it from work. But I could do one now if you want.

 

[lpdb185]

does it matter that i'm using the free trial right now? when i type in the recipe and change equipment or boil volumes it doesn't change anything in the ingredients. the only way i've found to do that is using the scale option.

yooper, what you're saying makes sense, but either i can't do it with the free trial or i'm misunderstanding something. attach file if you can, please. thanks.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

There is an online manual. And it's only about 60 pages.

 

[Reelale]

Go to Tools, Hop Bitterness. There you can change your volume, gravities, etc. Then add ur hops to see the corresponding effect.

 

[lpdb185]

Go to Tools, Hop Bitterness. There you can change your volume, gravities, etc. Then add ur hops to see the corresponding effect.

that works. can't figure out how to transfer the adjustments to the recipe though. i punch in 2.5 gal boil and the gravity, then add 2oz of centennial. it gives me 17.6 IBU. then i punch in a 6.25 gallon boil and adjust the amount of hops until i get the resulting 17.6 IBU's. i guess that's what you're saying to do.

doing it that way, it says instead of using 2oz i would only use .67oz. that's pretty significant huh.



BTW, i apologize for wasting anybody's time. i guess i'll just keep playing around with it till i figure it out. thanks.

 

[Reelale]

I think you can take the results from the hop bitterness, add it to your recipe, then you can scale to your boil size and final volume. It looks like you can also do what Yooper says, just change your Boil Volume. No need to apologize, this forum is here to help us noobs. Good luck.

 

[Sockmonkey]

lpdb185, if you change your equipment settings "outside" of the recipe (e.g. from the "Equipment" selection on the left) it does not change the equipment settings that are used within a recipe. You need to go into the recipe and re-select the equipment again to see updated settings applied.

This isn't terribly intuitive or obvious to new users, but it is convenient in that it allows you to tweak equipment settings per-recipe. Otherwise making a change to an equipment profile would change all of your "completed" recipes (batches) and you would have an inaccurate record.

Hopefully this makes sense...

 

[lpdb185]

okay, everyone is saying to go into the recipe and change the equipment to be compatible with a 6.25 gallon boil. i've done this but don't get any changes in the recipe. i assume this is where you are telling me to change equipment?

so that was with a 5gal pot and a 2.5gal boil volume.
here is the same exact recipe after i change to a keggle with a 6.25gal boil volume.

the only thing i notice is that it does show the difference in IBU's (from 47.6 to 128.4). but it doesn't change the amount of hops. do i just have to figure the amounts manually to get the desired ibu's?

 

[weirdboy]

Yes, you need to figure it manually. It will not adjust your hops for you so far as I know.

But it looks to me like you can just cut most of your hops additions in roughly half to get to where you want to be.

 

[Yooper]

okay, everyone is saying to go into the recipe and change the equipment to be compatible with a 6.25 gallon boil. i've done this but don't get any changes in the recipe. i assume this is where you are telling me to change equipment?

so that was with a 5gal pot and a 2.5gal boil volume.
here is the same exact recipe after i change to a keggle with a 6.25gal boil volume.

the only thing i notice is that it does show the difference in IBU's (from 47.6 to 128.4). but it doesn't change the amount of hops. do i just have to figure the amounts manually to get the desired ibu's?

YES! It shows you the IBUs changes, which is significant. Just go in and change the hops to .5 ounce and see the differences. That's easy, and that's what I do.

 

[Marko73]

You need to uncheck the box "Set boil volume based on Equipment." the other thing I do is adjust the hops myself to get back to 47 IBU's using the increase and decrease amount buttons. That is how I have adjusted hops due to boil volume.

Hope this helps.

 

[lpdb185]

okay, thanks for the help everyone. to be honest, i didn't notice the changes in IBU's until i started to post the snapshots. i think i got it figured out now. i was assuming that instead of changing the IBU's it would adjust the hops to maintain the same IBU #'s. that's where i was confused i guess.

THANKS FOR THE ASSISTANCE!!!!!! :rockin:

 

[Yooper]

okay, thanks for the help everyone. to be honest, i didn't notice the changes in IBU's until i started to post the snapshots. i think i got it figured out now. i was assuming that instead of changing the IBU's it would adjust the hops to maintain the same IBU #'s. that's where i was confused i guess.

THANKS FOR THE ASSISTANCE!!!!!! :rockin:

It's not very intuitive at first, but when you see that jump in IBUs, it really shows the difference!

It's really an easy program, and I'm sure you've noticed that many of us attach the BSM file with our recipes when we post them. So, instead of typing in one of my recipes, you can either take it from my recipe post, or I can email it to you. It's pretty cool.

 

[lpdb185]

It's not very intuitive at first, but when you see that jump in IBUs, it really shows the difference!

It's really an easy program, and I'm sure you've noticed that many of us attach the BSM file with our recipes when we post them. So, instead of typing in one of my recipes, you can either take it from my recipe post, or I can email it to you. It's pretty cool.

definately. i'm one of those people that always makes things harder than they have to be. i'll keep playing around with it and figuring it out. seems like a pretty awesome deal though.