Ok I have been making extract beer for a few months now and thought I would try using unhoped LME and some steeping grains. I have a recipe I have came up with using the program beer-smith. When using that program I set my equipment to what I have 5 gal. brew pot and set boil volume to 2 gal. to formula this recipe. I will be using 2 pounds of grains that i will steep 30 min. and 7 1/2 pounds of dark LME. So my question is, is boil volume just the amount of water added to the pot or does that include the LME to? If it includes the LME I will have to adjust the hops amount and stuff to get the IBU's right. And does any one know how much 7 1/2 pound of LME will displace the water?I plan on steeping the grains in 1 gal. of water if that helps. so please some one help!