How to record splitting of wort in two for different fermentations?

Hi,

Just installed BeerSmith this morning and have been playing around with it - quite happy so far!

When I brew, I normally separate collected wort in two - 25l for the main brew and 5l for experimenting with sours, but don't seem to find how to properly record it in BS2. Has anybody found a good way to do this?

I've looked through the forum, but only related topic I found is from 4 years ago and suggests making a 'master' recipe that takes you to the end of the mash with two 'children' that start with ready wort. In this case, would I record the two children as 'Extract' brews and just dial in wort volume, OG, etc?

I also thought about brewing the 'master' recipe and then removing 5l of collected wort prior to the boil - how do I do that so calculations are not affected?

Any help would be appreciated and thanks in advance

Not an answer to your question but let me suggest that you make custom equipment profiles. You can use the profiles that come with the software as a base to start with if there is one that is close to what you have but customizing will help you get better, more accurate result. Here are two good video tutorials...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwEbjOt8OR8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmW7pwQP5mQ

I have split batches by making a 'master wort' batch and then from that subdividing it down into smaller batches, treating them similar to extract recipes or just scaled down all-grain recipes.

Your idea of splitting of just 5 liters will work as well by adding that 5 liters to your 'loss to trub and chiller'.  If you do this, you will need to change your batch size down to 25 liters so that your overall brew house efficiency from your equipment profile is consistent with your normal batches.  When you do this, make sure that the calculated mash efficiency is equal to the value of the full 30 liter batch size.

Thank you both

@Kevin58 - setup my equipment as per videos (very helpful) - numbers are much closer now to what I've recorded during the last brew!

@Oginme - took your suggestion of adjusting 'loss to trub and chiller', but applied it to 'lauter tun losses' instead, leaving 'adjust mash vol for losses' unticked. This way BS2 thinks that it's unrecoverable, so doesn't go into the boil calculations, yet sets mash and sparge volumes correctly. Effectively leaves me with 6l of 'lost wort' that is not lost at all