Wind River
Member
Yesterday I spent 6 1/2 hours on my second all grain beer, an APA with an expected OG of 1.051. When I took my reading before pitching, I got a 1.034...not at all the result I expected. My last beer (the 1st all grain attempt) was an IPA with an expected OG of 1.066 that I hit right on the button (my efficiency was excellent on my Igloo MT and turkey fryer set up).
Needless to say, I was pretty bummed out. Although I think it will taste pretty good, I don't relish the thought of drinking a whole 5 gallon batch of "near-beer" (but I will )
The only thing I did wrong in my opinion was put my faith in BeerSmith. I downloaded the trial copy and entered this beer in as a recipe and added my mash profile. As it turned out the mash profile had me putting not enough water in the mash and too much water in the sparge. I was taking the extremely clear and watery 2nd runnings out when it hit me that I had made a huge mistake. I ran the boil, hoping that it would even things out but with no luck.
Later that evening, I plugged the numbers into Ken Schwartz's sparge calculator and got completely different water amounts. I used his calculator for my 1st all grain and everything worked out perfectly.
Chalk this one up to the old adage: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"!! Why I thought I could improve on an already good thing is beyond me (except that I am a huge geek and love any kind of software that I can play around with).
I know a lot of people here use and love BeerSmith but, for the love of the beer gods, I can't imagine why. However, just because I may not have had the rosetta stone for making the thing work, I don't really want to knock a program that others have had so much success with.
I was so bummed that I thought (briefly) about giving up homebrewing altogether but I see things better now in the light of day...
Now, my question is this:
When I plugged the numbers into Schwartz's spreadsheet, it told me that I needed to increase my grain bill by another 1.72 lbs of grain to compensate for the amount of water the grain would absorb. I don't know the right way to get all the grain percentages correct for the recipe. Has anyone run across any calculators for this or have a formula that would at least get me in the ballpark? I don't want to increase my % of 2-row, for example, at the expense of flavor or body.
Thanks for helping me out, guys. I have learned so much from everyone on this board in the few short months I've been homebrewing.
Mike
Needless to say, I was pretty bummed out. Although I think it will taste pretty good, I don't relish the thought of drinking a whole 5 gallon batch of "near-beer" (but I will )
The only thing I did wrong in my opinion was put my faith in BeerSmith. I downloaded the trial copy and entered this beer in as a recipe and added my mash profile. As it turned out the mash profile had me putting not enough water in the mash and too much water in the sparge. I was taking the extremely clear and watery 2nd runnings out when it hit me that I had made a huge mistake. I ran the boil, hoping that it would even things out but with no luck.
Later that evening, I plugged the numbers into Ken Schwartz's sparge calculator and got completely different water amounts. I used his calculator for my 1st all grain and everything worked out perfectly.
Chalk this one up to the old adage: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"!! Why I thought I could improve on an already good thing is beyond me (except that I am a huge geek and love any kind of software that I can play around with).
I know a lot of people here use and love BeerSmith but, for the love of the beer gods, I can't imagine why. However, just because I may not have had the rosetta stone for making the thing work, I don't really want to knock a program that others have had so much success with.
I was so bummed that I thought (briefly) about giving up homebrewing altogether but I see things better now in the light of day...
Now, my question is this:
When I plugged the numbers into Schwartz's spreadsheet, it told me that I needed to increase my grain bill by another 1.72 lbs of grain to compensate for the amount of water the grain would absorb. I don't know the right way to get all the grain percentages correct for the recipe. Has anyone run across any calculators for this or have a formula that would at least get me in the ballpark? I don't want to increase my % of 2-row, for example, at the expense of flavor or body.
Thanks for helping me out, guys. I have learned so much from everyone on this board in the few short months I've been homebrewing.
Mike