Brewsmith And Kits?

[BEC26]

Did the right thing and purchased beersmith. . . ..


1. Only do kits at the moment, have I jumped the gun?

2. I don't find it that easy to navigate around. Is it just me? ( I am pretty computer literate, just not Beersmth literate)

3. I've been to the BS forums, and not much joy there regarding kits.


It doesn't worry me if I have jumped the gun, just means I am ready when I make the shift towards AG . .


Cheers
Bruce

 

[Gavo]

Just experiment with it, it will help with the learning curve. I can be also useful just using it for kits if you are steeping some grain and using malt extracts. You don't have to use it just for AG, I am using it for extracts and partials. I have played with a few AG recipes also even though I don't do AG...yet... Try putting in some recipes from the recipe DB.

Cheers
Gavo

 

[seemax]

It's more of an AG / partial tool but can still be useful for kits.

Start by adding 1.7kg of liquid malt to the recipe for your can of goo (kit).

Adjust the Batch Size to suit, ie 23L. This will give you a starting SG.

Now add more malt, dextrose, etc as required to tweak the SG.

It's great when you start adding grain and doing mini hop boils so you can calculate additional bitterness.

 

[WarmBeer]

If nothing else, use it as a database to store the details of your brews.

That way, you can go back and easily reproduce a beer you made 6 months ago, and see how different ingredients / processes can have an impact on the final product.

In a couple of months you might find yourself tempted to make a jump to Extract brews, dumping the pre-hopped kits, which Beersmith fully supports.

Cheers, and good brewing.

 

[BEC26]

you might find yourself tempted to make a jump to Extract brews, dumping the pre-hopped kits, which Beersmith fully supports.

Cheers, and good brewing.

a question, does beersmith support pre-hopped kits or extracts . .. . or both??

Cheers (and thanks for the replies)

 

[Jase71]

I thin you need to enter kits in simply as x kg of liquid malt extract. As for the hopping, you would need to factor that into your end IBU result. I'm not too experienced in Beersmith, but I gather that you could add another hop ingredient as a dummy line and tweak the IBU to match that of your kit can (then add other hops if and as you require). Great if you're using Coopers cans, because the IBU's for each kit are on the website. But, as I found last week, good luck if you're using Black Rock, who not only have ZERO information on their site about the products (apart from a marketing blurb for each), buut simply do not respond to email queries.

/rant.

And he's right, extract brewing is great. I dumped the kits after two brews, and my third was much more fun to put together (still fermenting, but when I racked to secondary tonight, the sample tasted fantastic!)

 

[buttersd70]

I thin you need to enter kits in simply as x kg of liquid malt extract. As for the hopping, you would need to factor that into your end IBU result. I'm not too experienced in Beersmith, but I gather that you could add another hop ingredient as a dummy line and tweak the IBU to match that of your kit can (then add other hops if and as you require).

Big edit: I had a bunch of detail here, but beersmith doesn't do what it's meant to do. You should be able to enter a hopping schedule for the extract tin in the tin ingredient details...but I just checked it in a recipe, and as soon as you start adding other things, it all goes kerflooie, and changes the tin IBU....I'll have another play (cos this kind of thing annoys me) but in the meantime, Jase's suggestion is the way to go.

 

[Back Yard Brewer]

Did the right thing and purchased beersmith. . . ..


1. Only do kits at the moment, have I jumped the gun?

2. I don't find it that easy to navigate around. Is it just me? ( I am pretty computer literate, just not Beersmth literate)

3. I've been to the BS forums, and not much joy there regarding kits.


It doesn't worry me if I have jumped the gun, just means I am ready when I make the shift towards AG . .


Cheers
Bruce

1. Who cares if you only do kits as long as you enjoy what you do.
2. Once you progress further and start to understand the the principals behind AG brewing you may find Beersmith a little
easier to understand. Well I did anyway.
3. Don't be afraid to ask more questions through the forum. I have lost track of the amount of reading of threads that have
beersmith as the subject. Still have shiploads more to read up on. As others have said, have a play with it. Beersmith that
is.



BYB

 

[samhighley]

You'll find that Beersmith does very strange things when you use pre-hopped extracts (ie. kit tins).

For instance if you setup a pre-hopped extract tin (kit) as the only addition, and it was setup to "Add after boil", as soon as you add anything else to the ingredient list the IBU's would go haywire.

I always found it very frustrating, but now that i've gone AG it's not a concern.

 

[buttersd70]

For instance if you setup a pre-hopped extract tin (kit) as the only addition, and it was setup to "Add after boil", as soon as you add anything else to the ingredient list the IBU's would go haywire.

hehehe...I found this out last night...I knew about the feature, but had never used it in a recipe....I put up a detailed post how to do it. Then I though 'better check it against a recipe'...and lo and behold, the hopping goies haywire, just like you said. Does the same thing regardless of "add after" being selected or not....

I think Jase's suggestion is very sound....have a dummy hop line, and just make sure that as any changes are made to the recipe, that line is ammended to maintain the right IBU level. Slightly awkward, but having gone through it last night, its the lesser of two evils.

 

[samhighley]

Or you can just freak with the IBU level of the kit. Add it last and tweak the IBU levels for the kit to make sure the full IBU's of the kit are added.

This becomes a total PITA if you want to then adjust the volume of the recipe.

 

[cdbrown]

So for example a coopers Euro lager which the website states
Weight - 1.7kg, Colour - 90EBC, Bitterness - 340IBU

Do I add 1.7kg of a liquid malt extract and then a dummy hop line with 340IBU and ?? weight?

I got beersmith last night and managed to get all my other ingredients in except the kit info.

 

[Gavo]

Do I add 1.7kg of a liquid malt extract and then a dummy hop line with 340IBU and ?? weight?

Something along those lines will work, Hoverver I believe that you will need to multiply the 340 IBU by the kit weight and divide that by final volume (eg 340 x 1.7 / 23 = 25IBU) to get the approx IBU. 340IBU would be a very bitter beer indeed.

Cheers
Gavo

 

[buttersd70]

for the colour, its- EBC x 1.7/volume
for the IBU it should be IBU x 1.7/volume

however.....there have been big long discussions in other threads about the coopers IBU ratings....on their website, they give the above formula, but advise that it will come in 10-30% under that, due to yeast dropping bitterness out (which does happen, but not to that kind of degree). General consensus (with which I fully agree) is that a more reasonable representation is just IBU/volume.....

example, the Original lager. IBU 390. in 23L, going off the (mathematically correct) formula, you get 390*1.7/23 = 28.8 IBU. This means that for a beer that is at 0.5 BU:GU (ie neutrally balanced, niether sweet not bitter), you could make it up to 1057 with malt....well over a kilo. If you made it with 1kg of malt, this would give ~ 1040, meaning that it would be 0.72 bugu - which is perfect for a pilsner. But anyone who has ever made this tin knows full well that if you add more than, say, 300g of malt, you get a very sweet beer indeed....so the numbers don't match.

Using the same example, but just IBU/vol, you get 390/23 = 16.9 IBU, which sounds much more reasonable...this means that malt up to 1034 would give 0.5 bugu. 1kg of malt giving ~1040 would mean that it is 0.42bugu - very sweet. If anything, I think 16.9 is generous for this kit.....

Having done many coopers kits, I have found that for volumes of 15-25 L, the straight division is reasonable for everything in the lighter colour range. Once you get to the dark and the stout, the bitterness appears to be closer to what coopers states, however I never really played with the darker kits, so can't be sure. But have done lots of Coopers draught, pale ale, sparkling, real ale and lager tins before moving away from kits, and always got good results with IBU/volume. (and we all know how I hate using formulae that are incorrect. )....comparing the later batches to the full extract batches that followed, where I controlled the hopping, it works out as fairly close doing it this way.

Slightly OT, but hope this helps.

 

[cdbrown]

Something along those lines will work, Hoverver I believe that you will need to multiply the 340 IBU by the kit weight and divide that by final volume (eg 340 x 1.7 / 23 = 25IBU) to get the approx IBU. 340IBU would be a very bitter beer indeed.

Cheers
Gavo

Ahh - I think I might have tried to set it by using the EBC instead of IBU. I would have got it wrong anyway, I was just trying to see what OG I should be looking at.

 

[Bribie G]

Just downloaded the trial version so I can play with it prior to my big brewery upgrade. I guess the poor support for kits is that, AFAIK, kits like we have here and in the UK aren't common in the USA who seem to nearly always use extract plus hops at 'beginner' level, and Beersmith being a USA product......

However once you get the brewing bug I'm sure you'll soon be itching to get into extracts and partials (which require very little expenditure on extra equipment) and you'll be getting more and more benefit from Beersmith.

 

[BEC26]

Thanks for the info!

Will keep plugging away

Cheers

 

[earle]

I use beersmith a lot for kits with bits and extract brews. Here's what i do

I set up the kits using the specs from the coopers etc web sites or there's some spreadsheets floating around here. Everything I add hasthe "Add after boil' box untied. To get the IBU for the kit into beersmith there is an option to add however many grams of hops to get the right IBU.

When I'm formulating a recipe I add the kit, then any other fermentables. This changes the IBU of the kit so I go back into it and change the grams of hops in the kit until the IBU is correct. I then add my hopping schedule.

I have the boil volume set for 23L but to do a smaller boil I work out the same gravity to get a similar hop utilisation. eg 1.7kg kit + 1.5 kg liquid malt = 3.2kg / 23L (final volume) x 6L (boil volume) = 830 grams of malt in a 6L boil.

Hope this helps