BeerSmith Pre-Boil Volume

[noslenwerd]

Hi there... My pre-boil estimate is 6.22 gallons for a 5.5 gallon batch.. somehow I think that is off hah. Check the screenshots below and let me know if I messed up somewhere? I did add a custom piece of equipment.. could that be where the error is?

 

[Oginme]

First thing that I see which does not compute is the figure for 'top up water for kettle' at 10.00 gal. Are you adding some water to the kettle prior to the boil? With a 10 gallon mash tun, it would seem to be unnecessary. If you are not adding water directly to the kettle, then this figure should be zero.

Beyond that, the 6.22 gallons looks to be about right. 6.22 gal - 0.5 gal boil off = 5.72 gal. At 4% shrinkage due to thermal expansion this is 5.5 gallons post-boil. This matches your batch size in your recipe.

 

[raysmithtx]

When I first started using Beersmith I set up a 'sanity check' worksheet to check all my numbers until I finally got the program dialed in for my system. I do BIAB but this might help.

Total Water Needed
- Grain Absorption (.96oz/oz of grain in my system)
-Boil Off (1.53 gallons per hour in my system)
* .96 to account for shrinkage when cooled
-Trub loss (.25 gallons in my system)

So a typical brew day for me is:
10.05 gallons
-1.73 gallons grain absorption for 14.39 pounds of grain
-2.29 gallons (90 minutes boil)
_______________
6.03
*.96 shrinkage from heat
________________
5.79
-.25 trub loss
____________________
5.54 gallons into fermentor


As I mentioned, this for a BIAB system but might help others with a similar question.

 

[acidrain]

Biggest factor is your boil off rate... are you really only boiling off .5 gal / hr.?

 

[ctufano]

Its hard to tell (accurately) boil off rate... For me, I dont touch that setting. Once I have a nice pot with a sight tube I will tinker, but until then I'm assuming actual quantities from some hash marks that are 1.5" or so apart on the kettle...

 

[jdauria]

To figure out your boil-off rate more accurately, just boil a kettle full of water for an hour and see how much boils off. That gives you a starting point. That's first thing I do when I get a new kettle.

 

[Homercidal]

I have a stainless measuring stick. With it I can measure the kettle diameter and the height of the wort. This can be used to roughly determine amount of wort in the kettle.

You can do the same thing. Measure how much is in the kettle at the start of the boil, and then measure again in 1 hour. See how much disappears.