# How to read Beersmith recipe



## Lowlyf (5/8/15)

Hey guys, can someone explain to me the process of the water additions its telling me to use here.
I only have a 19L Big W pot at the moment and I had an attempt at all grain on Sunday but ended up with only about 12L and an SG of 1.068 when I wanted more wort and an SG of 1.048 

View attachment Bell's Two Hearted IPA.html


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## breakbeer (5/8/15)

Looks like you had it setup for full volume, no sparge. So you have to allow for the amount of water lost to grain absorption, boil off & any dead space (wort left in pot after transfer) 

Add some boiled water to your wort ( there are online calculators to tell you exactly how much to add) to get to your desired OG

Hope that helps


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## breakbeer (5/8/15)

Also, looks like the recipe called for close to 20L of water + nearly 4.5kg of grain. Doesn't sound possible in a 19L pot


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## yum beer (5/8/15)

breakbeer said:


> Also, looks like the recipe called for close to 20L of water + nearly 4.5kg of grain. Doesn't sound possible in a 19L pot


Seems a little unlikely, especially given my 19L Big W pot is lucky to 17L.


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## Lowlyf (5/8/15)

yum beer said:


> Seems a little unlikely, especially given my 19L Big W pot is lucky to 17L.


Yeah exactly! So I'm trying to determine what beersmith is telling me to do so I can adjust accordingly because this pot is tiny but I do like the idea of half batches for the time being


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## breakbeer (5/8/15)

You'll need to make sure your equipment is setup correctly 

What does it say in your equipment profile? There's a drop down menu that should state the size of your pot

Edit: when I said it doesn't sound possible I should've been more blunt & said it's physically impossible


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## Barge (5/8/15)

I'm guessing that you ended up with 12 L because the batch size was set to 12 L. 

It looks like you added 4 kg of grain to 20L of water and ended up with 17 L of wort to boil. That grain absorption seems a little low. Did you measure the volumes? 

Then it looks like you boiled down to 14.5L? Did you measure this? Is this the volume after it cooled? (hot liquids take up more space than cold ones)

So i'm guessing that in the end you lost 2.5L from kettle losses? Again did you measure this? if not then you probably should. Next brew you should measure the volume and S.G. at each stage. Before you brew the next batch you should fill the kettle to just above the tap and let it drain out until the flow stops. Close the tap and then measure the volume of the liquid in the kettle. This will give you the volume lost to trub, etc.

Finally, it looks like your efficiency was less than estimated as the expected O.G. is higher than the actual O.G. if you expected an O.G. of 1.048 then you should have set the batch size accordingly. If this is bigger than you can boil then you can add top-up water to make up the difference.

Barge


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## Lowlyf (6/8/15)

All great replies, but I should note this is a recipe, of which I haven't attempted yet. It's just from beer smith. My last batch of pale ale I sort of winged in the end because I got lost in the translation of the recipe. 

What I am after is for someone to explain this recipe in lamens terms so I and I'm sure others can learn where the volumes should be at certain points.


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## kaiserben (6/8/15)

I think you've confused everyone by talking about something you made previously. 

As the recipe stands it simply won't work. 4.34kg grain and 19.98L water simply don't fit in a 19L pot.

BUT I reckon what might be going on is that the person who wrote the recipe mashed in another vessel (like an insulated cooler, maybe a 25L one, or larger) and then transferred the resulting wort into the 19L pot after pulling the bag and being left with 17.33L pre-boil volume.


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## pcqypcqy (6/8/15)

breakbeer said:


> Also, looks like the recipe called for close to 20L of water + nearly 4.5kg of grain. Doesn't sound possible in a 19L pot



When I started all grain earlier in the year, I was using the same pot and recipes formulated in beersmith. I was doing 5.5kg grain, 12.5 litres strike, 8.5 litres sparge, and collecting about 16 litres of wort preboil. I was mashing in a mashtun though.



yum beer said:


> Seems a little unlikely, especially given my 19L Big W pot is lucky to 17L.


These pots are pretty dodgy, I think they use the outder diameter of the rim to determine the volume, i.e. the volume of air the pot occupies, rather than the volume of liquid you can put in it  It was touch and go there a few times for boil overs.

I usually ended up with about 13 litres into the fermenter.


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## Lowlyf (6/8/15)

To make it simple, I just want to know what my strike vol should be, my mash vol, my pre and post boil should be and any additional water I should top up with without losing flavour and how I can calculate this on my own


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## Coodgee (6/8/15)

I think you did the right thing with you what you've got. if it's only a 19 litre pot the best you can hope to do is brew an 18l batch of high gravity and then dillute it down to the correct volume and OG in the fermenter. It's not a bad option.


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## nala (6/8/15)

Lowlyf said:


> To make it simple, I just want to know what my strike vol should be, my mash vol, my pre and post boil should be and any additional water I should top up with without losing flavour and how I can calculate this on my own


I think that you need to work backwards to achieve what you are looking for.You are constrained to the boil volume of your 19 litre pot.
I think you should aim for no more than 15 litres boil volume,work on 10% boil off to start with.
You will probably get 12 litres into fermenter,including trub.
Set up Beersmith for a 12 litre batch size.
As has been mentioned you will need something like an Esky to mash in,use a grain absorbtion figure of 0.650 litres per kg of grain.
Mash-in with 15 litres of water and sparge to achieve a boil volume of 15litres.
Alternatively do as you are now doing and then use the adjust gravity tool in Beersmith to achive
your target 1,048 by adding 5 litres of water.


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