Recipe Generation - Water Volumes

[BakerBrewing]

I keep getting stuck here. I stopped using beersmith when creating recipes. I just found that volumes are not being calculated properly or things came out a bit weird. I know create recipes with tried and true hand calculations but I keep getting hung up on what water volume I should use to hit a target OG.

The question is when you create a recipe should the water volume you use during calculations be the pre boil volume, the volume that goes into the fermentor or what the final batch size would be after fermentation?

I hope the question makes sense.

 

[jdauria]

I use BeerSmith. Usually you are starting with the anticipated volume going into the fermentor post boil and cool down, for me, that's 5.25 gallons.

The important thing is to keep track of a few batches and figure out how much water you lose during the boil and during cool down. If you don't have those numbers down pat, then getting the amount of water you need pre-boil is just a guess. For example, I use a propane burner and on average I lose one gallon per hour due to boil and 3/4 gallon do to evaporation and shrinkage during cool down. So I need 7 gallons in pre-boil after mash and sparge.

 

[zachattack]

Beersmith does the same calculations, it just makes it a hell of a lot faster. If your water volumes are being weird, it's most likely because you haven't properly set up your equipment profile in Beersmith.

As posted above, know the volumes/losses for your system. I'd plan the recipe around the post-boil volume. If you have any losses after that (break, trub, transfer losses), they won't change the gravity.

 

[BakerBrewing]

Thanks for the help that seems simple, makes sure I have my equipment setup properly.

 

[BakerBrewing]

Zackattack sorry didn't read your post fully. So building recipes off the post boil volume is what I should be doing. Thanks.

 

[zachattack]

That's how I like to do it. Maybe others have a different opinion.