Question on Equip profile and Add After Boil

Three questions.

1. For extract brewing should the boil volume setting include the total water plus extract or just the total water added to the boil?

2. I boiled a second batch of extract without hops for 10 mins then added it to the fermenting beer after cooling. In the BeerSmith application i'm thinking I should check "Add After Boil" for this extract as it was not boiled with hops. Am I on the right track here?

3. The Fermenter top of water setting doesn't seem to change any parameters when I adjust it. Is this just an FYI setting or is it utilized for any calculations?

To preface, BeerSmith is based on brewing from grain and having a full volume boil. Extract brewing will always show variance because its procedures don't follow that rule and has a lot of other variables.

Ferde357 said:

1. For extract brewing should the boil volume setting include the total water plus extract or just the total water added to the boil?

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Boil volume should represent what you want to boil. It's somewhat independent of both extract and water volume because of how much extract you intend to dissolve into the boil water.

Clearly, extract will add volume to the kettle. Using common sense is encouraged over blindly following software. With experience and time, you'll nail the numbers. Until then, I'd advise you to be short on water until the extract is dissolved, then add water to get the desired boil volume. Measure the water and put that into BeerSmith to hone its predictions.

2. I boiled a second batch of extract without hops for 10 mins then added it to the fermenting beer after cooling. In the BeerSmith application i'm thinking I should check "Add After Boil" for this extract as it was not boiled with hops. Am I on the right track here?

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It depends on your procedures and recipe. Is the main recipe accounting for this extract or is the second addition a different recipe? How does your procedure differ from adding all the extract in the first kettle and just topping up the fermenter with water?

3. The Fermenter top of water setting doesn't seem to change any parameters when I adjust it. Is this just an FYI setting or is it utilized for any calculations?

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If the batch size is set to what you have in the fermenter, then top up water should change the boil volume. Top up water to the boil kettle isn't useful for extract brewers because it effects the sparge water of mashing. With a 5 gallon batch, if you expect to have 2.5 gallons in the kettle after boiling, then 2.5 gallons of top up water in the fermenter should equal things out.