Negative Sparge and mash water volume mismatch

Hi,

I have searched the forum before posting the topics and tried to correct my equipment profile but to no avail.

I'm new to brewing, so I'm starting small with 4 liter batch.

Setting trub and chiller losses to 0.1 and cooling shrinkage to 0.16, my post boil volume is 4.26
I lose around 1.0 liter to boil off, so my pre-boil volume is 5.26
Considering my tun deadspace (0.2 liter), I should get 5.46 liters into the mash tun, plus water lost to grain absorption (1.85 liters) adding up to a total of 7.11 liters to mash in. This gives me plenty of space, since my mash tun is 9.5 liters.

However, My recipe's mash tab (please see file attached) has a mash in volume of only 4.45 liters with an automatic setting of NEGATIVE 0.5 liter fly sparge
Also, the recipe's volume tab displays a different number (7.83 liter) as total mash water. Both 4.45 and 7.83 are, in my understanding, wrong.

How does BeerSmith 2 calculates the the mash in water volume? Is it using some water / grist ratio parameter?
How does BeerSmith gets to this 7.83 liter at the recipe's volume tab? It doesn't make any sense...

Could you please help me out?
Thanks in advance,

Leo

Issues:

In your equipment profile, you have your mash tun volume listed as 5.4 liters, but you state your mash tun is actually 9.5 liters.  This gives you an error in the volume needed for mashing 5.56 liters versus your equipment profile mash tun volume of 5.4 liters.

You also have in your equipment file a boil off rate of 0.57 liters for a 60 minute boil.  You want to update this to reflect what you think your actual boil off will be and make sure you check the box to have BeerSmith use this as a hourly boil off rate, otherwise if you change the boil time for another recipe, it will not scale the boil off accordingly.

You want a 4 liter batch, but the recipe has a batch size of 2.27 liters, so the water is calculated to give you 2.42 liters post boil.  With your cooling shrinkage and trub loss of .06 liters, this will yield your batch size of 2.27 liters.  Since you have set the water to grain ratio in your mash profile to 2.608 liters/kg of grain, BeerSmith calculates you will actually use more water in your mash than your calculated pre-boil requirements.  Thus it calculates a negative sparge volume.

When I go to the volumes tab, I see a 'total water needed' as 3.92 liters.  The mash section lists the total mash water at 4.45 liters.

I would recommend starting by reworking your equipment profile to reflect the actual volume of your mash tun and your boil-off rate.  Make sure the batch size is set to your desired 4 liters.

See what this does to your recipe and let me know if there is something else off.

BTW, you can change the water to grain ratio in your mash profile by editing the mash step.  There is a place there to set your desired infusion ratio.

Thanks for such a quick reply!

However, it appears that there is something wrong with the files I've sent you. When I open them, the values are as I described and when you open them, you see different figures.

I reopened the files I've attached to my previous messager and the mash tun volume in the equipment profile (see text below) is 9.5 liters, not 5.4 liters (maybe some file's unit conversion issue?). I will, however, follow your recomendation of checking the box to calculate the hourly boil off rate.

I also reopened the recipe file and the batch size is 4.0 liters, not to 2.27 liters. Any ideas why Beersmith gives you different numbers when you oppened these files?

I copied and pasted the text from the equipment profile and recipe below.

Equipment Profile: Leonardo 5 liter Kit
Batch Size: 4.00 Imp pt

Mash Tun Volume: 9.50 Imp pt
Mash Tun Weight: 1.05 kg
Mash Tun Specific Heat: 0.22
Lauter Tun Deadspace: 0.20 Imp pt

Boil Size: 5.26 Imp pt
Boil Time: 60 min
Evaporation Rate: 19.0 %
Calculate Boil Size: FALSE
Kettle Top Up Water: 0.00 Imp pt
Hop Utilization Adjustment: 100.00 %

Trub/Chiller Loss: 0.10 Imp pt
Cooling Loss: 4.00
Top Up Water into Fermenter: 0.00 Imp pt

Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com

-------------------

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Porcaria English IPA - LVR twist
Brewer: Leonardo Ribeiro
Asst Brewer:
Style: English IPA
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 5.26 Imp pt
Post Boil Volume: 4.26 Imp pt
Batch Size (fermenter): 4.00 Imp pt
Bottling Volume: 3.89 Imp pt
Estimated OG: 1.160 SG
Estimated Color: 41.6 EBC
Estimated IBU: 55.9 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 73.8 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                  Name                                    Type          #        %/IBU       
3.20 g                Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 mins Water Agent  1        -           
1.80 g                Epsom Salt (MgSO4) (Mash 60.0 mins)      Water Agent  2        -           
0.70 g                Baking Soda (Mash 60.0 mins)            Water Agent  3        -           
0.40 g                Chalk (Mash 60.0 mins)                  Water Agent  4        -           
0.20 g                Calcium Chloride (Mash 60.0 mins)        Water Agent  5        -           
0.90 kg              Maris Otter Blend (5.7 EBC)              Grain        6        52.7 %       
0.50 kg              Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC)        Grain        7        29.3 %       
0.20 kg              Caramalt (26.0 EBC)                      Grain        8        12.0 %       
0.10 kg              Crystal 110 (125.0 EBC)                  Grain        9        6.0 %       
7.11 g                TNT [12.30 %] - Boil 50.0 min            Hop          10      46.1 IBUs   
3.05 g                East Kent Goldings (EKG) [6.00 %] - Boil Hop          11      7.8 IBUs     
3.05 g                East Kent Goldings (EKG) [6.00 %] - Boil Hop          12      2.0 IBUs     
0.5 pkg              SafAle English Ale (DCL/Fermentis #S-04) Yeast        13      -           
5.00 g                Citra [13.20 %] - Dry Hop 3.0 Days      Hop          14      0.0 IBUs     
4.00 g                Equinox [14.20 %] - Dry Hop 3.0 Days    Hop          15      0.0 IBUs     
3.00 g                Fuggle [4.90 %] - Dry Hop 3.0 Days      Hop          16      0.0 IBUs     


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Full Body, No Mash Out
Total Grain Weight: 1.71 kg
----------------------------
Name              Description                            Step Temperat Step Time   
Mash In          Add 4.45 l of water at 75.7 C          68.9 C        45 min       

Sparge: Fly sparge with -0.52 Imp pt water at 75.6 C
Notes:
------


Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Turn 'calculate boil size' to positive.

Did you recheck the files you uploaded?  I did double check the file and it is still coming up as I said.  If this was the default and you have the boil volume calculation turned off, then the program will not recalculate the volume needed for the boil.

Another thing to check.  When you adjust your equipment profile outside of a recipe, it will not update within the recipe.  You need to open the recipe and re-select the new equipment profile with the updated settings in order for it to work within your recipe. 

I opened your recipe again and set the equipment profile as follows:  Mash Tun volume 9.5 liters, selected option for 'adjust mash vol for deadspace', selected 'calculate boil vol automatically', selected 'Use boil off as hourly rate'

Within the recipe, I set the batch size for 4 liters.

BeerSmith is saying to mash in with 4.56 liters of water and sparge with 1.15 liters of water.  It shows collection of 4.79 liters pre-boil to end up with 4 liters in the fermentor and .06 liters of trub.

Hi,

I made all the changes you suggested at the equipment and reloaded at the recipe.

A the mash screen, I get the same 4.56 liters of Mash In. However, I still get the negative sparge... -0.72 liters.
At the volume screen, I get the total mash water of 8.03 liters... Go figure!

Check these print screens:

Equipment:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/aeg321oz8hnrbop/Screenshot%202015-11-23%2000.28.52.png?dl=0

Recipe design screen:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z5e5d6yjcna6lks/Screenshot%202015-11-23%2000.30.24.png?dl=0

Recipe Mash screen:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/btz4hkz01a5jkp0/Screenshot%202015-11-23%2000.30.57.png?dl=0

Recipe Volume screen:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vh1y8zibasvmimw/Screenshot%202015-11-23%2000.31.15.png?dl=0

Again, thanks a lot!!!!

I've changed the grain absortion back to standard value o 0.96 (in advanced settings). I dropped down a little earlier, based on my experience. This resulted on a POSITIVE fly sparge of 0.44...

I still don't get why the different in mash water between the Mash screen and the volume screen. One screens tells me to add 4.56 liters to the mash (plus 0.44 as sparge water). The other says I need t 8.03 liters as sparge water... I can't figure it out!

Thanks once again!

Best,

Leo

When I checked your screenshots, I noticed that the target volumes are all in imperial pints.  So again, 4 imperial pints as your batch volume is 2.27 liters and not the 4 liters you are looking to get.  This low batch size with the target amount of grain is leading to more water being added in the initial infusion and thus giving you a negative sparge number. 

Wow!!! You are right! How come I haven't noticed that before?
I have set all units to metric as soon as opened Beersmith for the first time, so I never even looked at the units.
Oh, I can't wait to get home and try to change those imperial pints to liters.
Once again,  I can't thank you enough.
All the best,

Leo

It worked like a charm! You are the best!