Unexpected Starter OG

I am trying to use the Recipe screen to produce a yeast starter with a size of 0.71 gallons using DME.  I arrived at the 0.71 gal amount from using the Yeast Starter tool.  The desired OG of the starter is 1.036.  I filled in the following values:
Batch Size: 0.71 gals
Type: Extract
Boil Time: 15 mins
Ingredients: Light Dry Extract

When I use the Adj Gravity button in the toolbar so that the Est Original Gravity reads 1.036, the amount of DME comes to 1 lbs 6.3oz.  After preparing the starter with this amount and then cooling the gravity was 20.7 Brix via Refractometer.  The Refractometer tool calculates this to be 1.084 for Unfermented Wort Gravity.  I was really expecting something closer to 1.036.  Why am I so horribly off?  My refractometer is calibrated, so I expect the problem is with how I am using BeerSmith.

If you are going to use the recipe screen to calculate a starter you will have to change your profile and make all losses zero for it to work.

Seems like a lot of work to me.

Easy way - 3.5oz DME per liter yields 1.038. I just made a 2l starter with 7 oz and it was exactly 1.038.

So 2.7l starter would need 9.45oz of DME.

NOTE be sure you have the correct viability for the yeast when calculating a starter size. BS for some reason likes to think the yeast is really old and thus generates a very low number requiring a massive starter.

I feel like I am opening a can of worrms here, but the whole yeast pitching thing is not an exact science and there are many different views about it - notably from White Labs who seem to think everyone is over-pitching everything!

Pitching rates should be between 150-250 billion for almost everything. If you pitch 200 billion I don't think you can go wrong (unless you are using lager or something with a SG of 1.080+)

To me it's like government work - if you are within 50 billion of your target then that's close enough

Thanks for the info!  I was concerned about that since the equipment profile I'm using is for 30 Gallon Blichmann pots.  I could always create one just for the purposes of making a starter as you suggest.  I was looking at the refractometer calibration screen to see if there wasn't something skewing my readings, though I'm not sure if that's how that tool works.  And just to be sure I made a very small amount of wort in order to compare readings between my hydrometer and refractometer and both instruments measured the same value, after conversion of course.  I used the procedure in Chris White's Yeast book calling for 1g DME/10ml water in order to yield a wort of approximately 1.030-1.040, but it turned out to be 1.073, much higher than expected.  Now I'm wondering if my digital scale is off. 

Ok at 1gr per 10ml it is 269 gram or 9.5 oz. I am not sure where you got the 1lb6.3oz from - that is 915.7grams.
Just boil up another 0.9 gal of water (to sterilise) and add to what you've got and it will come out around 1.037. I used the dilution tool in BS to work that out - lots of great stuff in there!

After some testing and making sure my equipment was reading accurately, it was indeed my equipment profile that was causing the recipe to recommend way too much DME (that's where the 1lb 6.3oz figure came from) in order to arrive at a 1.036 wort.  Using a new profile with zero losses brought the recommended DME amount in line with the 1 gram of DME per 10 ml of water rule of thumb.  There is order to the universe after all.  Thanks for the excellent advice!