"Total water needed" in BeerSmith

[zoned_post_meridiem]

I'll start by saying that I'm fairly new at this -- if the answer is obvious, apologies in advance.

I got into brewing because I enjoy tweaking recipes, and so I've been playing around with Beersmith with some recipe ideas after just a few extract/kit batches under my belt. Overall, I'm getting the hang of it, except for one thing: the 'Total Water Needed' number under the 'Vols' tab, which is consistently over a gallon higher than what I think it should be for my extract batch with full boil. My Equipment is set up as follows:

10 gallon kettle
60 min boil
.5 gal boil off
.25 gallon cool shrinkage
.5 gallon loss to trub and chiller
.5 gallon fermenter loss

This gives me, predictably, a 6.75 gallon boil/pre-boil volume, 5.5 gallon batch volume into fermenter, and 5 gallon bottling volume. So far so good.

But then I tab over to the 'Vols.' tab, where I see these same numbers confirmed, except at the very top it says "Total Water Needed: 7.95 gallons". Why all that extra water? I'm doing extract/full boil, so there's nothing mash-related that would use water.

 

[Yooper]

I'll start by saying that I'm fairly new at this -- if the answer is obvious, apologies in advance.

I got into brewing because I enjoy tweaking recipes, and so I've been playing around with Beersmith with some recipe ideas after just a few extract/kit batches under my belt. Overall, I'm getting the hang of it, except for one thing: the 'Total Water Needed' number under the 'Vols' tab, which is consistently over a gallon higher than what I think it should be for my extract batch with full boil. My Equipment is set up as follows:

10 gallon kettle
60 min boil
.5 gal boil off
.25 gallon cool shrinkage
.5 gallon loss to trub and chiller
.5 gallon fermenter loss

This gives me, predictably, a 6.75 gallon boil/pre-boil volume, 5.5 gallon batch volume into fermenter, and 5 gallon bottling volume. So far so good.

But then I tab over to the 'Vols.' tab, where I see these same numbers confirmed, except at the very top it says "Total Water Needed: 7.95 gallons". Why all that extra water? I'm doing extract/full boil, so there's nothing mash-related that would use water.

It's in your settings somewhere- either with the boil volume being a percentage or something like that, or with a top up volume or something.

 

[Pappers_]

I'm not sure what the difference is, but your math, leading to 6.75 gallons, makes sense to me.

People use brewing software differently, depending on their system and process. For me, I don't try to get absolute truth from it, but set it up in a way so that it supports my ability to accurately predict my numbers and be able to compare from beer to beer to beer. So, perhaps one question is whether you've been ending up with 5 gallons at bottling when you begin with 6.75 gallons?

If you don't get an answer here, there is a subforum here on brewing software where someone who is more expert at BeerSmith might respond. Scroll down the subforums and you'll find it.

Another thing is that your number for boil off loss strikes me as low, but that's just an off-the-cuff reaction - you can definitely measure that. I use a larger kettle, 20 gallons, and its wide and I get 2 to 2.5 gallons of boil off in an hour.

And welcome to HBT!

 

[SoCal-Doug]

Could be a few things...

Go back to the design tab. What is the "equipment" drop down set too? You can select and edit the equipment profile settings by clicking the checkmark icon next to the dropdown selection.

Did you create a custom equipment profile? Are the values in the equipment profile correct? (losses, boil off, and is "use boil off as hourly rate" checked or not as intended). Does the batch size and/or boil time in the design screen differ from the equipment profile?

Can you do a screen shot of your volumes screen?

FYI... A half gallon per hour boil off sounds quite low. My 15 gallon keggle with a 12" opening is dead nuts on at 1.65 gal/hour but will vary slightly depending on ambient temperature and barometric pressure.

 

[zoned_post_meridiem]

Thanks for all the replies -- I can see why this place is an invaluable resource for homebrewing! I'll go over my custom profile again to see if I missed something deeper in the settings. What throws me is that while my estimates might be off in terms of real-life performance, they do add up correctly (in the software) to an estimated 6.75 pre-boil volume.

I'll post screenshots of my equipment and volumes screen later tonight. Ultimately, it's no big deal (everything other than one number makes perfect sense), I just tend to be analytical and like to understand where various numbers come from.

 

[ba-brewer]

I have never looked at the volume tabs before, I too get a larger than needed total volume. Looking closer I see there is 10lb of grain (greyed out) in the mash section and they are applying the grain absorption for that 10lbs of grain to the boil and mash volumes.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

ok... just for grins I tried it (I've never plugged in an extract recipe in beersmith before). Here's my guesses...

The "total water needed" should probably be ignored. It appears to be adding the "grain absorption" quantity, which would not apply. The only thing I had in my test recipe was 8 pounds of liquid extract for a 5.25 gallon batch. I have no clue how it came up with 10 pounds of grain, absorbing 1.2 gallons of water.

Ignore the entire mash section. It obviously does not apply.

The boil and fermentation section values are correct based on the recipe settings and equipment profile settings.

I guess when you do an extract recipe, you need to subtract that extract volume from the pre-boil volume so you know how much water to start with?

 

[zoned_post_meridiem]

The "total water needed" should probably be ignored. It appears to be adding the "grain absorption" quantity, which would not apply.

I think you're right. I'll attach my equipment and volume screenshot, but when I add the grain absorption to my pre-boil volume, it adds up to the total water needed number. What's odd is that BeerSmith recognizes I'm doing an extract (it grays out all the mash stuff) but forgets not to add the grain number.

As for whether or not to subtract extract volume ... I'm not sure?

 

[SoCal-Doug]

Yup. No matter what you change, the "total water needed" is still "Total mash water adds" plus "Sparge volume", which has nothing to do with an extract recipe.

So then... Hmmmm... Pardon my ignorance, but I haven't used extract in more years that I want to admit

It appears that liquid extract is sold/packaged in pounds. I suppose they are all rendered/boiled down to the same density? Is there a constant value to convert pounds of liquid extract to quarts or gallons?

I suppose the easiest way to handle it is start your boil water below the total needed, then add the extract, then top it off to the pre-boil volume with more water.

Which then makes me wonder about dry extracts. It of course dissolves, but it must use volume. If there's a whole bunch of DME in a recipe, does beersmith take that into volume consideration? Or would you again stir up your dry extract in a gallon or two of water, then top off to the pre-boil volume.

Just a curiosity. Using beersmith for all grain, has been surprisingly accurate.

 

[zoned_post_meridiem]

Yeah, I'm not sure. I think DME adds around half a gallon for 7lb, but I don't see a way of accounting for that in BeerSmith. My guess is that I'll just prep about 6.25lb of water for a 6.75lb estimated pre-boil volume, with DME making up the additional volume.

I'm also fairly new to this, so the numbers don't need to add up perfectly. By the time I want them to add up perfectly, I'll probably be on the all-grain side, which the program seems to be more explicitly designed for.

 

[thekraken]

Work around go to Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Grain Absorption and set it to 0.0.

If you go to the Brew Steps it says "Add water to achieve boil volume of X gal", that's all you really need to worry about. I'd think in your case you can safely ignore the total water needed.

 

[balrog]

Recipe Type - ? Extract, partial mash, or all grain?
that's the only thing I can think of.

 

[thekraken]

I found another way to work around it: Add 0.01 lb of 2 row to the recipe.

For some reason when you create a recipe and set it as extract the Mash Grain Wt gets stuck at 10lb so it calculates grain absorption. If you add a negligible amount of grains it triggers the software to recalculate grain wt and thus absorption to be 0.00. You may have to switch the recipe to all grain to trigger this. After it is triggered you can delete the grain from the recipe and set the type back to extract.

 

[auburntsts]

Recipe Type - ? Extract, partial mash, or all grain?
that's the only thing I can think of.

He said in the first post it was extract.

 

[balrog]

He said in the first post it was extract.

I have forgotten to change the setting in BS before, the equipment and the type can be chosen wrong, along with settings within the equipment type which he covered, but I was just saying check the recipe type setting as seen below:

 

[thekraken]

I have forgotten to change the setting in BS before, the equipment and the type can be chosen wrong, along with settings within the equipment type which he covered, but I was just saying check the recipe type setting as seen below:
View attachment 419187

Can confirm that I get the error OP describes when recipe type is set to extract.

 

[Oginme]

I've worked this through many times in the past. You should ignore the 'total water needed' when doing extract recipes, as it really does not mean anything to the software for extract recipes. It seems to be intended to reflect water volumes for all-grain or partial mash recipes and there is no other way to make sense of it for an extract recipe. The numbers, as the OP has correctly figured out, do not add up.

BeerSmith also does not add in the volumes associated with LME into the water calculation either. Brad has stated on the BeerSmith forum, that he would be including the volume impact for LME additions in the next version of the software.

 

[zoned_post_meridiem]

BeerSmith also does not add in the volumes associated with LME into the water calculation either. Brad has stated on the BeerSmith forum, that he would be including the volume impact for LME additions in the next version of the software.

Does that mean that I should get the estimated pre-boil volume number into the kettle, before adding LME/DME? Or (as is suggested on p. 1 of this thread) aim to hit that pre-boil volume after adding the extract?

 

[thekraken]

Does that mean that I should get the estimated pre-boil volume number into the kettle, before adding LME/DME? Or (as is suggested on p. 1 of this thread) aim to hit that pre-boil volume after adding the extract?

No, the preboil volume should be the volume of the wort including the extract. Add half or most of your preboil volume water, add and dissolve your extract, add enough water to get to calculated preboil volume. If you add the entire preboil volume in water then add extract you will have too much volume, and lower gravities.

 

[Oginme]

"aim to hit that pre-boil volume after adding the extract?"

This