If you heat your mash tun, you can go under the recipe and select the mash tab and on bottom half of screen on left you can enter the heated tun temp, which will lower your strike water temps slightly. Someone else will have to answer to how accurate it is.
Another option is to clear the checkbox on the Mash tab for Adjust Temp for Equipment. Add the strike water to your tun, and when it gets down to the target strike temp, add your grains.
I've found BeerSmith's temperature calculations to be surprisingly accurate for me and my equipment, but YMMV.
I used BeerSmith2 temperature twice, and can say that the temperature is pretty accurate, you can bump it a few degrees up, but I don't think it will be necessary.
Accurate. Surprisingly. I use it for 10 gal with grain bills ranging from 14 to 38 and I'm rarely off more 1 degree before I recirculate through me herms
OK, thanks. Will try it on Saturday. Plan to add 10 degrees or so to Beersmith's strike temp, pour the water in the tun and let it preheat. When the water drops to strike temp (with "Adjust Temp for Equip" unchecked), I'll add my grains.
I use Brewer's Friend or brew365's mash calculator and count on losing 2 degrees while stirring the mash for 2 minutes with the lid off. With that in mind it's pretty much spot on. I guess instead you could enter a lower number for the grain temp with the same net effect.
In BS2 I ignore the batch sparging numbers, they make no sense.