Graham crackers - how to record in BeerSmith?

[teebob2000]

Hi all - I'm doing my first AG batch attempt so I'm trying to sort out all the details and settings and options in BeerSmith. Crap there's a lot of stuff in there!!!! Rather head-spinning for me...

Anyway, I'm using a base sweet/milk stout recipe and adding 3 lbs of crumbled graham crackers to the mash. And I have NO idea how to record that in BS because, since it's got sugar and grains in it, I assume it will add at least some fermentable solids.

Any advise or place you can point me for how to deal with that is appreciated.

Thanks in advance!!
Tom

 

[Hello]

I just researched this issue and a thread here pointed to brew toad so I went searching. I found one recipe after clicking at least a dozen that listed the crackers under the grain bill, which is what I was looking for. It may not be spot on with my particular brand of crackers, but I think this is where you can say it is close enough.

https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/graham-cracker-plagiarism

 

[SpeedYellow]

I wouldn't worry much about it, and just add it as a Spice or "other". But I suppose you could call it a grain and give it a few PPG, and work it out from food label. IMHO, the bigger issue is what to do about all the salt in it! Two boxes would give you around 130 - 140 ppm sodium (plus lots of Cl) so you have to be really sure you want that much salt in your beer. I don't know the level where it will start tasting salty, but I've had salty beer and it's disgusting.

I just used graham crackers but I couldn't bring myself to use 2 boxes for that reason.

 

[teebob2000]

I wouldn't worry much about it, and just add it as a Spice or "other". But I suppose you could call it a grain and give it a few PPG, and work it out from food label. IMHO, the bigger issue is what to do about all the salt in it! Two boxes would give you around 130 - 140 ppm sodium (plus lots of Cl) so you have to be really sure you want that much salt in your beer. I don't know the level where it will start tasting salty, but I've had salty beer and it's disgusting.

I just used graham crackers but I couldn't bring myself to use 2 boxes for that reason.

Yeah, I thought about that and considered maybe doing 1 box of crackers and then augment with late-boil additions of brown sugar, cinnamon and molasses, and maybe honey as well.

ETA: just did the calculation on 2 boxes, which would be 4.2 grams of sodium, which is 0.15oz which doesn't seem like too terribly much in 6 gals. And of course, it wouldn't all be rendered out into the wort during the mash.

ETA2: I measured it out and 4.2 grams comes out to about 5/8 tsp.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Select crackers in the ingredients list. And change the units to grahams.

 

[teebob2000]

Select crackers in the ingredients list. And change the units to grahams.

HA!!!! Win.

 

[SpeedYellow]

...
ETA: just did the calculation on 2 boxes, which would be 4.2 grams of sodium, which is 0.15oz which doesn't seem like too terribly much in 6 gals. And of course, it wouldn't all be rendered out into the wort during the mash.

ETA2: I measured it out and 4.2 grams comes out to about 5/8 tsp.

Well, you should really calculate the ppm so you can compare to what others say, e.g. Palmer has some recommendations about sodium levels.