A place to give your tips and tricks and answer any questions about using Beersmith.
I also have Beersmith mobile which allows me do brewdays without the need of the laptop do the timings and show recipes at meets(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160210/495c11768f4858ef77ef3a3eff726cd5.jpg)
I don't use the inventory function even though it has the potential to tell me exactly what I have or the cost of each beer I make.
I gather at some point they are going to cross ref inventory against recipes to allow you have a go at something new based on your stock
Be very careful that the ingredient data you have chosen on ingredients is correct, eg alpha acids is correct on your hops based on what's written on packing and not what default value for that hop is in Beersmith or colour is correct on crystal or other dark malts.
Lets start at the Start Equipment Wizard
Simple stuff here how much do you leave at the bottom of the boiler and FV
I tend to overcompensate on these as I really like to leave an inch of liquid above the trub line and FV line
If you want to be hyper accurate do a full brew an measure, 2 ltr lost to FV and 3 for boiler for me
So Next and we are asked how much do we boil off. On a 30-35 litres batch this can be anywhere between 3 and 5 litres depending on the severity of the boil, mines 5L.
Next is boil time again default is 60 I use 90 for lagers and Pilsners
To get beersmith to work for you, you need to get your profile setup to model how your setup works. The best was to do this is to measure everything on brewday. Also, to measure liquids accurately, make sure you first calibrate all vessels correctly. Don't trust the stick on liquid measures as they tend to be inaccurate. Instead, get a measuring jug and carefully measure in 1 Litre at a time, marking it off on your vessal. Also, do this after you have installed all components or when you make changes, as they all take up space inside that will displace your water.
Once you've done this, do a brewday and measure all volumes at each stage, then update your profile to match. After 3 or 4 brews, you should have beersmith matching what happens and the numbers will converge.
After that, enjoy - suddenly Beersmith will come alive and you can tweak recipes to your hearts content.
ok Last page and a bit trickier now
Brewhouse efficiency, and this is where some folks get a bad case of phallus envy.
Brewhouse efficiency is not a reflection of a quality beer and I see lots of brewers punching in their ingredients fooling themselves with 80-85 % values and then missing their targets or making monster beers by accident with 65% values.
For typical set up its can be in the 70-75 range Braumeister and Herms 80-85.
The more brews you do the more data you have to plug in and after 3-5 brews you will know what your efficiency is and what % you should be comfortable with.
Be aware however big abv beers and your efficiency will drop so if say you normally do 5% at 75% you should consider 65-70% for an 8-10% beer.
Do weigh your mash tun and put in correct volume, I filled mine with water to the level I was happy with and just measured that.
Drain your mash tun and there will be a small volume of liquid left depending on where your drain is, pour this volume into a measuring jug. This is you Lauter tun deadspace value.
Put a check in the Adjust Mash Volume for Deadspace.
And so thats it thats you equipment profile and you are good to go!
Molc you are disturbing my rhythm :P
+1 on some of those measures on the FV though. A 5L jug is worths its weight in gold, I have a lovely pair of jugs (3 and 5L).
I am wondering for the nubes is there a particular area or aspect you would like us all to address.
Throw up the topic or area that confuses you most and we can all go through them one by one?
Consider the temperature of the volume your marking if you want to be precise. There is a 4% increase over 100C
So if I lower Brew house efficiency, to say 69% , it will have the effect of lowering or (normalizing) the Alcohol content ?
Yes exactly you extract less fermentables from the grain and so have a lower og to start
Quote from: CH on February 11, 2016, 10:31:15 AM
I have a lovely pair of jugs (3 and 5L).
Lets keep it clean lads. :D
Can't believe Dempsey missed that one he's usually my "bad cop" within the hour
Ah leave him alone. He's getting on a bit.
Braver than me saying that
Quote from: Motorbikeman on February 11, 2016, 12:35:57 PM
So if I lower Brew house efficiency, to say 69% , it will have the effect of lowering or (normalizing) the Alcohol content ?
Simple Stella Clone at 72% 4.7% abv I did a couple of years ago for a pal.
(Dislaimer statement)
By Reducing my efficiency to 65%
Or increasing it to my current 85% the impact on the extractables and ultimately abv is significant
Missing OG number by a point or 2 is not a problem and I get freaked out when I hit my numbers on the nail, its not an exact science there are other things that come into play like quality and freshness of ingredients that can also influence as well.
So if your target for OG was 1046 don't freak out if its in the 1044-1048 range, that comes when its 1035 or 1060 ;)
Hitting a high efficiency isn't everything. You are better getting a consistent efficiency rate and hitting you numbers every time then erratic numbers on brews.
You may have to add an extra 500g of base malt but I would be much happier knowing I was gonna hit my 68% numbers each time then struggling to get an extra % the odd time.
For me its all about knowing your system and knowing what you will hit each time then trying to keep up with the 80% efficiency minority.
Quote from: nigel_c on February 11, 2016, 05:47:52 PM
the 80% efficiency minority.
Wonder can I get a grant for being a minority, I often feel that by mangling and rinsing every last % out does it impact on the flavour, would I be better off with "gear and a friend" rather than "coke and hookers", one of life great ponderables.
Herms V's straight Mash Brewoff in the same gear coming up in the summer months methinks, with a proper not bullshit set of evaluators :D
I got 82% once and it convinced me to rebuild.
Will take a few brews to dial in the effiency and start hitting then each time.
My No1 tip is to read This (http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.ie/forum/index.php/topic,7953.msg99721.html#msg99721) before you buy Beersmith. They have increased the price since I posted it but it still works out substantially cheaper than buying with our discount code, as you are paying in Aus $ rather than Yankey $
Just a quick question on the mash tun dead space.
When draining your mash tun after a mash/sparge do people drain it 100%?
It would take me so long to do that, there is alot of liquid that is held in the grains that eventually drains out.
My point is that I have a copper manifold and if I were to put water in and drain it I would have maybe 200ml left. Almost nothing.
If I do a sparge and drain after an hour Ive got most of the wort, only dribbles coming out.
I usually continue my brew day and leave the mash tun to drain out into another basin before chucking the grains.
So I have now counted that leftover wort as the deadspace.
Is this wrong?
Spot on. Your deadspace is your wastage or extra runnings that you need to make but don't collect.
I would recommend creating multiple equipment and mash profiles for your brewing. These need to be updated somewhat based on my last couple of brews, but this is what I do:
oops - wrong attachment on one.
(http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae75/Ozbrewer/beersmith%20-%20mash%20profiles.png_zpsijbvoohu.jpg) (http://s959.photobucket.com/user/Ozbrewer/media/beersmith%20-%20mash%20profiles.png_zpsijbvoohu.jpg.html)
Oh, 5 step mash for your schwarzbier? do share! :)
Or you could just copy a previous recipe with that profile and adjust for new ingredients
I am trying to enter a recipe from Gordon Strong's 'Modern Homebrew Recipes' into Beersmith and I've come across a problem. He has two types of grain that he uses at the vorlauf stage and I am wondering how to enter these in the programme?
I was hoping to enter the recipe as is and then scale it to my equipment profile, but perhaps that is wrong?
Quote from: BigDanny84 on March 10, 2016, 12:48:34 PM
I am trying to enter a recipe from Gordon Strong's 'Modern Homebrew Recipes' into Beersmith and I've come across a problem. He has two types of grain that he uses at the vorlauf stage and I am wondering how to enter these in the programme?
Vorlauf is circulating the initial runnings off back over the grain bed. I don't get what you mean he has two types of grains. There are two types in the mash or two different mashes?
Gordon strong recommends if I remember correctly adding dark grains to mash at vorluff after either a cold or hot steep, I'll check it out tonight when I get home
Quote from: Pheeel on March 10, 2016, 01:09:10 PM
Vorlauf is circulating the initial runnings off back over the grain bed. I don't get what you mean he has two types of grains. There are two types in the mash or two different mashes?
Sorry i didn't explain myself too well. The recipe is for a BIPA, all the pale malts are mashed and then the dark malts are added when you are ready to vorlauf.
On Beersmith there is no option to add grains to a recipe at that stage. If I add all the grains from the recipe to Beersmith my OG will be off and then when I scale the recipe my quantities would be off, I think?
Maybe I'm just over thinking it all.
I did that once from his book. Haven't done it sense as I found the resulting beer (a stout) a little too smooth. However, when I was entering in Beersmith, I just renamed each grain in the recipe with Vorlauf at the start, so I knew which ones to do it with on the brewday.
Well dark malts have less fermentable sugars than base or medium malts so it won't affect the og as much. You're only steeping them for the colour.
Oh right. Yeh molc's suggestion of renaming is fine. I wouldn't mess with anything else in Beersmith
The idea AFAIK is to make the beer less astringent/harsh by adding the dark malts later
Thanks guys.