Beersmith 3 adjustments

[switched]

Hi All,

After a period of getting the brewhouse together with Fermentrack/iSpindel/fermentation fridge, kettle, fermentor, odds and ends I finally had the first AG brew day on Friday. Think it went well, fairly close to numbers I think? - Pre boil was 1.047 and expected 1.046 and OG was 1.057 and I got 1.054.

Used beersmith having setup my equipment prior to the brewday, BIAB (Crown), 40L, 7kg, 012 specific heat, with a brewhouse efficiency of 72% etc. A couple of points I noticed during the day.

1) after adding in the required 33.57L of water, after the mash and raising the bag, I had 1 extra litre in the kettle than brewsmith estimated post mash (estimated 30L, I had 31L). Yes i did squeeze the bag.
What and where do I need to update this within beersmith for future brews so it becomes more accurate?

2) Estimated post boil was 25.5L and I ended up with this amount. If 1) above gets changed, what do I need to change here? I think I have since upped the boil off rate to 5.5L, from 4.5L on my equipment profile already.

3) I was supposed to get 22L of wort in the fermentor, ended up with 21L. I had 4L of trub that didnt whirlpool no matter how hard I tried. This 4L of trub was set as per the equipment profile. Do I need to account for this 1L somewhere also?

Cheers!

 

[Leyther]

Just a thought on 1) could it be temperature causing the difference? I think @ 100C you would have 4% expansion, your end of mash would be >65C so it will have some expansion. I am not sure how BS calculates these values and if it takes temp into account (I suspect not).

 

[switched]

Thanks Leyther, yea makes sense, 2% on 31L is around 620ml, so close enough. I know that start mash temp was 67.1 and end mash was 66.1 over 75 minutes so only 1 degrees over 75 mins.
I never started as kit and kilo so jumped straight into AG so not having a few sessions behind me I haven't yet built up a baseline.

So i was a couple of points under for OG (1.057 vs 1.054). Is this typically normal variances or something I should be considering? I am assuming this is only just just slightly reducing the ABV, i note the recipe was going for 5.9% and now I am at 5.8%.
Besides the drop in ABV, is there anything else I need to consider here having slightly lower than targeted? Is this something I would turn up the boiler again on to get the OG higher or would this throw out the hop calculations that we wouldn't bother?

 

[Rocker1986]

How long did you boil it for? My Crown urn only boils off at around 3 litres per hour.

What I did was sort of do things in reverse, not taking much notice of the Beersmith recommendations and just working out myself how much water I needed to start with to get the target volume of wort into the fermenter. Once I worked that out, I sorted out the BS profiles for my two batch sizes of 21 and 25 litres. I consistently get these target batch sizes now, and even though the OG of the worts does vary from batch to batch, it's usually pretty much on target too. I don't really worry about a couple of SG points out or a litre more or less anyway, it's not worth it.

 

[Simon N]

You could also consider changing the grain absorption rate. It’s not in the actual equipment profile, rather in the overall advance settings for the software. I had to play with that a few times to get it right for my grain bag mesh, patience and level of squeezing!

 

[philrob]

I don't bother with the settings etc in BS3 for my strike and sparge volumes, nor did I do it in BS2 or BS1.
After 130+ AG brews I don't need software to tell me what and how much to do.
Just keep notes and adjust what you do for the next batch, and you will eventually know what you need to do to achieve your targets.
I know to heat my HLT to 5 or 6ºC above my desired mash temperature, and when I mash in and hit my mash temperature, I know it's all good.
Same as sparging, I just fill the mashtun (just a mere 25 litre cooler) full up to mashout and runoff, and I do the same for my sparge. I batch sparge, stuff that fly sparge malarky.
Gets me 34 or 35 litres into the kettle.

 

[Rocker1986]

I only bothered with them after doing the same thing, measuring and recording my own system measurements etc. It's handy to have the profile set up properly for your system but I'm much the same, I know how much water I need etc. With my Crown urn BIAB set up I've worked out that I need to start with 11L more water than the intended batch size. Works every time on any batch size.

I've only added this data to the equipment profiles so I'm not ending up with some weird measurements at the end of the brew day and wondering why it's out of whack with the predicted ones.

 

[switched]

How long did you boil it for? My Crown urn only boils off at around 3 litres per hour.

What I did was sort of do things in reverse, not taking much notice of the Beersmith recommendations and just working out myself how much water I needed to start with to get the target volume of wort into the fermenter. Once I worked that out, I sorted out the BS profiles for my two batch sizes of 21 and 25 litres. I consistently get these target batch sizes now, and even though the OG of the worts does vary from batch to batch, it's usually pretty much on target too. I don't really worry about a couple of SG points out or a litre more or less anyway, it's not worth it.

75 mins boil time. One thing I haven't accounted for is the 4% margin, so i was measuring the amount of wort in the kettle at around 90 degrees or so I am sure.
With the crown, at the boiling rate, there isnt really a way to boil slowly its either on or off. I boil fully with teh lid off, and have the kettle wrapped in that foil insulation from clarke rubber. Of the pre brew day test, and the brew day, it seems consistant around 5.5L.

 

[switched]

Thanks everyone - all good info. I'll keep at BS until Ive gotten the hang of it all, for now, ill follow each recipe and dial in the settings. Like you all, Ill pick up on the patterns

 

[Rocker1986]

Maybe the urn being wrapped is making a difference. I don't wrap mine up during the boil, or at all for that matter. I also boil for 75 minutes, but the wort level only drops about 3.75-4 litres.