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Why is my estimated preboil gravity higher than my estimated original gravity?

eddiek85

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I noticed that on a recipe I'm making, the preboil gravity is estimated by beersmith to be higher than my original gravity. How would Beersmith possibly deduce that after boiling a 1.068 worth that it will finish at a gravity of 1.067?

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eddiek85 said:
I noticed that on a recipe I'm making, the preboil gravity is estimated by beersmith to be higher than my original gravity. How would Beersmith possibly deduce that after boiling a 1.068 worth that it will finish at a gravity of 1.067?

Beersmith is getting that value from the parameters you've set in your equipment profile.

You may have top up water or have forced values in some of the fields or even have no boil off. If you double check the volumes and make sure the "calculate boil vol automatically" box is checked, the numbers should be in line.
 
You will not get accurate results unless you set up a custom equipment profile. Don't just accept the profiles that come pre-loaded in the software. Your measurements will not be the same... even if you find a pre-loaded system that matches what you use. You will need to measure all of your losses... grain absorption, mash tun dead space, evaporation during boil, boil kettle losses from trub and/or dead space, fermenter losses... even the amount lost in your hoses, pumps and anywhere else water/wort is going to be left behind. You should even identify your mash tun and enter correct values for it's thermal properties. Fortunately there are tutorials to make these things a bit easier but you will still need to invest some time and effort taking the measurements. Here is one of several videos I suggest watching... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwEbjOt8OR8
And one more... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmW7pwQP5mQ


I also recommend making your own mash profiles. I have six separate ones for BIAB and six more for batch sparging on my 3 vessel system. Here is the batch sparge tutorial... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ0TFtMnzxs
And the BIAB tutorial...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKiEjhxo2oo

I cannot recommend enough the importance of going through all of these steps. It will save yo so many headaches in the future.
 
I am going through the same. It is tough to figure out the losses if you are new to the game. Grain absolution being one, it seems that it would change according to the grain bill, so it does seem a bit odd it is in the equipment profile. Kevin58 thanks for supplying the tutorials, I'll take a look soon.
 
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