• Welcome to the new forum! We upgraded our forum software with a host of new boards, capabilities and features. It is also more secure.
    Jump in and join the conversation! You can learn more about the upgrade and new features here.

Infusion Temp in Mash

swalker25

Apprentice
Joined
Mar 10, 2017
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
The infusion temp is always off by about 8 degrees lower that what it needs to be. How do I fix this? There's no way to manually adjust that setting in the recipe design, as it's auto-calculated.
 
Greetings swalker25 - the infusion temperatures are automatically calculated based on parameters you establish in both the Equipment Profile (mash/lauter tun section) and the particular Mash Profile you're using for the batch.

The very first thing you need to do when setting up BS2 is to establish an accurate Equipment Profile - one that matches your exact equipment and brewing style.  Then, when creating a recipe,you can select any one of the many mash templates (if you will) and adjust the parameters according to your needs.

Once these Peofiles are established, BS will deliver accurate mash temperatures each time.

Hope this helps!

Good luck!
 
To add to what KellerBrauer has said, you need to make sure your mash tun weight is entered in correctly and that you have the specific heat entered in which best represents the construction of your mash tun.  Once you get that entered into your equipment profile and have updated a recipe with that profile, you can make an adjustment to the specific heat setting to adjust the strike temperature to represent what you actually recorded.

 
I've input all the specs for my equipment in properly, but the water temperature additions are still off. And that seems to be one of the only fields in beersmith where you aren't allowed to enter in your own numbers.

If I click the check to "adjust temp for equip" it only adjusts the temperature 3-4 degrees. In the summer time I lose about 5 degrees from my cooler and in the winter, I lose about 8-9 degrees. Even after adjusting those 3-4 degrees, the water addition temperature is incorrect. So not only is Beersmith adjusting for my equipment incorrect, it's also adjusting for the lose of temp from the grains incorrectly.
 
On the 'mash' tab, are you entering the temperature of the grains and of your equipment?  This is needed to calculate the correct heat transfer to bring these in balance with the temperature of the water.  The strike temperature of the water must include the energy needed to raise the temperature of the grain and equipment if you are having the program adjust the water for the equipment.  If you are seeing such a swing from summer to winter, it would seem that you have not been updating these temperatures on the mash tab.

When you say you are losing about 5 degrees, am I correct in guessing that if you want the infusion temperature to be 154 the temperature of the mash once you have added the water to the mash tun and stirred in your grains is actually coming out to around 149?  We are talking about initial infusion temperature and not the temperature loss over the time of mashing, aren't we? 

If I am correct about the above, then the next steps is to adjust the specific heat of your mash tun to get the temperatures to match your actual results.  You can do this by making a copy of a recipe you brewed, edit the mash profile within the recipe to match your actual temperature achieved.  Once you have done that, edit your equipment profile within the recipe and change the specific heat for your mash tun up (if you are low in temperature versus your target) or down (if you are higher in temperature vs your target), until the strike temperature calculated by BeerSmith matches the original calculated by BeerSmith.  Once you have reached this, or close to this value, then save the equipment profile by clicking on the disk icon from within the recipe.  Now when you update the mash profile within your recipe copy back to your originally targeted mash temperature, the program should give you a corrected strike temperature which will bring you closer.
 
Back
Top