The Morning After Brewday: Number Crunching with BrewSmith, Improving

[cannman]

Brewed Pliny the Elder Clone with @mazourka-joe, and we're kinda scratching our heads over the final numbers...

Overall, we both agreed that we had a great brew day. We've hit all of our number this far from boiling volume post bag pull post boil, starter, etc, but at the end of the day came out with only 66.75% efficiency.

We're not sure where we messed up (hitting all goal number and finishing so low on efficiency) but we think it has to do with the way we inputted the BeerSmith numbers (which field we used) especially in regards to top up.

We needed to cut the full boil by 1 gallon to make sure we didn't overflow so we added the gal after the bag was pulled. After the boil, we needed another gallon added to meet estimated final volume...

If someone wouldn't mind looking at my BeerSmith file attached, I'd appreciate any help to getting this on track to at least 72%

If you need more of the process that went to making the beer, I'd be happy to give the play by play.

Reference to Pliny number on Russian River.com: http://russianriverbrewing.com/brews/pliny-the-elder/

Thank you for your help.

View attachment Pliny the Elder Clone.bsmx

 

[Hello]

If your volume was targeted for 2 gallons more than what you ended up with prior to top off, then you enter that number into the post-boil volume. It is like adding DME to hit your OG. If I brewed a batch and got 1.050 OG but knew I needed 1.060, then I enter 1.050 into BS. I add a pound of DME and get about 1.058, which is more to my target but doesn't count when measuring efficiency. If I had entered 1.058 then I would have not had 64% efficiency, it would have bee higher.

So is that what you did? If you met your OG prior to topping off then that's another story. Sounds like you may not have though and with topping up, I would suspect the pre-top up OG was higher than the anticipated.

 

[cannman]

If your volume was targeted for 2 gallons more than what you ended up with prior to top off, then you enter that number into the post-boil volume. It is like adding DME to hit your OG. If I brewed a batch and got 1.050 OG but knew I needed 1.060, then I enter 1.050 into BS. I add a pound of DME and get about 1.058, which is more to my target but doesn't count when measuring efficiency. If I had entered 1.058 then I would have not had 64% efficiency, it would have bee higher.

So is that what you did? If you met your OG prior to topping off then that's another story. Sounds like you may not have though and with topping up, I would suspect the pre-top up OG was higher than the anticipated.

We hit OG AFTER top up. We approached the situation where we wanted to wind up at OG in beersmith with the finished volume. Is this not how to plug in the numbers? Obviously this means that the post boil prior to top up was much higher than 1.070.....

 

[Oginme]

Your .bsmx file does not show a top off at all and contains about a quart of trub left. You do show a 1 gallon top off BEFORE the boil. It would appear as though this is in the wrong place if you topped off after your boil and may explain some of the discrepancy.

You came in low on your pre-boil volume (as expected if you cut out a gallon of mash water) and higher on your pre-boil gravity. The total gravity points predicted vs actual are right on at this point, demonstrating that you achieved the mash efficiency target of 68.6%.

If your system commonly gets around 72% efficiency with a standard gravity recipe, this slight drop with a higher gravity recipe is not unexpected. Typically, as the amount of grist goes up, the ability to extract all of the sugars out drops because more of it remains with the grain.

 

[stpug]

Grain: 26.27 lbs x 36 pts/lb = 945.7 points possible at 100% efficiency
Grain: 945.7 pts x 72% efficiency = 680.9 points needed from grain for 72% efficiency
Sugar: 1.36 lbs x 46 pts/lb = 62.6 points contributed at 100% efficiency
Total Points: 680.9 + 62.6 = 743.5 points total needed from the recipe for 72% efficiency

You brewed: 70 pts/gal x 10 gallons = 700 points obtained from recipe
Your efficiency: (700 - 62.6) / 945.7 = 67.4% brewhouse efficiency reached

I would conclude that you brewed the recipe at 67ish% brewhouse efficiency and hit your numbers. I guess it was ?lucky? you happened to use the grist amounts needed to hit your OG and fermenter volumes. If you had used a recipe for 72% then you would have not reached your needed OG.

I'm still a little confused as to what the issue is that you're trying to resolve. Are you saying that you want to brew Pliny The Elder at 72% brewhouse efficiency on your system? If that's the case then you will need to adjust your crush/process/system to accommodate this next time. Finer crush to expose more starches; more efficiency lauter with less loss; more sparge water for rinsing; less BK loss; perhaps extra boil time to allow for extra sparge water.

If I'm totally off base let me know and I'll take another stab at it.

 

[cannman]

There's a lot going on here. Its clear we can brew it, but incorporating this technology is confounding...

...............

If your volume was targeted for 2 gallons more than what you ended up with prior to top off, then you enter that number into the post-boil volume. It is like adding DME to hit your OG. If I brewed a batch and got 1.050 OG but knew I needed 1.060, then I enter 1.050 into BS. I add a pound of DME and get about 1.058, which is more to my target but doesn't count when measuring efficiency. If I had entered 1.058 then I would have not had 64% efficiency, it would have bee higher.

Okay... the way I thought BeerSmith worked was if you need a 10 gal batch then everything works backwards to get you there.... :/

I want to be able to make a recipe where I have a 10 gal batch, load my equipment and have it understand that my kettle will need to short a full boil 1 gallon (typically) and it will be reconstituted when the BIAB grain bag is pulled...

With all the fields in BS, it seems like this might be possible... how?

So is that what you did? If you met your OG prior to topping off then that's another story. Sounds like you may not have though and with topping up, I would suspect the pre-top up OG was higher than the anticipated.

OG hit AFTER top up....

 

[Hello]

Your file says your recipe was to achieve roughly 68% efficiency, did you type this number in yourself? I ask because overtime I have noticed that I can always get 70% efficiency, therefore, when preparing a recipe in BS, I automatically change the default 72% to 70%.


But if you prepared your recipe with the default 72%, which is what my BS seems to default to, and then you changed it after you found out you only hit 68%, then it would give the impression that you were on target all along. Right now, it appears that you hit the efficiency that your recipe was prepared for but because you said you topped up THEN hit your OG, I happen to think your efficiency was targeted higher, you missed it but then hit it when you topped up.

In the volume tab if your pre-boil amount was 6 gallons (just using random numbers) and you were supposed to have 7, then you put in 6. If you topped up with a gallon, then that # goes under "kettle top up". If you didn't add that to kettle top up and you added it to just the pre-boil volume, then you're not really giving the whole picture.

I don't know if that makes a lick of sense. Maybe not.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

Beersmith works backwards towards the "batch size" which it defines as the volume going INTO the fermenter.

How big is your pot, was the top off after the boil necessary due to volume constraints, or was it necessary because you didn't have your boil off rate nailed down yet?

 

[cannman]

Beersmith works backwards towards the "batch size" which it defines as the volume going INTO the fermenter.



How big is your pot, was the top off after the boil necessary due to volume constraints, or was it necessary because you didn't have your boil off rate nailed down yet?

So the pot is 16.2 gallons. I shorted it because I was worried that we would exceed the height of the pot with this grain bill (I could have pulled it off in hindsight).

You are right on with us still tinkering with the pot boil off rate. I just went from 25k btu to a 50k btu burner so it's like starting all over,

 

[cannman]

Your file says your recipe was to achieve roughly 68% efficiency, did you type this number in yourself? I ask because overtime I have noticed that I can always get 70% efficiency, therefore, when preparing a recipe in BS, I automatically change the default 72% to 70%.
View attachment 279106

But if you prepared your recipe with the default 72%, which is what my BS seems to default to, and then you changed it after you found out you only hit 68%, then it would give the impression that you were on target all along. Right now, it appears that you hit the efficiency that your recipe was prepared for but because you said you topped up THEN hit your OG, I happen to think your efficiency was targeted higher, you missed it but then hit it when you topped up.

In the volume tab if your pre-boil amount was 6 gallons (just using random numbers) and you were supposed to have 7, then you put in 6. If you topped up with a gallon, then that # goes under "kettle top up". If you didn't add that to kettle top up and you added it to just the pre-boil volume, then you're not really giving the whole picture.

I don't know if that makes a lick of sense. Maybe not.

The 68% was entered after everything was done (the apparent efficiency).

Thanks for breaking it down. I'm thinking I'll just not input any top up when I plan on shorting the wort on purpose until we pull the bag. I'll just plug in a full boil...