• 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.

BS 3 EST ABV WAY LOWER THAN BS 2

maltsteeper

Apprentice
Joined
Apr 23, 2009
Messages
9
Reaction score
0
Need some help here .... I just got the trial version of BS 3. My recipe saved in BS2 cloud shows est OG of 1.117 which matches BS3 , however the Est ABV in BS2 shows 13.1% vs an Est ABV in BS3 showing 10%. The strange thing is that It is saved in the cloud as the exact same recipe. Only difference is which program version I use to view it with. I am pretty sure that this recipe should be closer tp 13%. So how to fix this one? I already looked at my equipment profiles and advanced options and they match spot on. Water volumes also match. Grain volumes and types match as well.Any help would be appreciated. i want to buy BS3 but I want to figure this out first. Seems like i noticed this when I was playing around with water mineral additions and ph adjustment, but I am not 100% sure that it was different before that.
 
What you are experiencing is a limit on attenuation from the yeast you selected.  In BS3, there was a change to cap the attenuation based upon the max alcohol tolerance of the yeast as published by the yeast manufacturer.  You can bypass this by editing the yeast in the recipe and changing the max tolerance number.  Doing this will not change physical reality, however, and your results will highly depend upon fermentation temperature, quality and quantity of viable cells pitched, and fermentation time.
 
Ok , thanks for the help! It had me baffled. I have US 05 as the yeast selection which I thought was good , but i see that on the Safale website it's range is 9-11%. I may need to re-think my yeast selection for this beer or use less grain. Again, thanks for the help. Cheers! 8)
 
Often, I have found the yeast companies to be fairly conservative in their limits.  It is always good to check with the yeast company for clarification giving them specific details on your planned brew.
 
Adding to what Oginme has stated:

It's fairly common for some yeast strains (US-05 included) to exceed their advertised limits when pitching plenty of healthy yeast into an adequately aerated/oxygenated (not necessary when pitching dry yeasts) and well nutrified wort and maintaining temperature within the ideal range for the strain.

 
Sure enough ... Changed the yeast selection and it shows what is expected for ABV. I guess it threw me because I thought US-05 was ok up to about 13% , but I never looked at their website for official numbers until now. Beersmith 3 now taking that into account actually may be helping me make better beer by showing me that the yeast may not be the most appropriate for the recipe i want to make. I wonder if there is a way it could highlight that fact when plugged in to a recipe. I only stumbled upon it because I noticed the ABV looked off from BS2 , but I guess I need to be a better brewer rather than expect a program to do EVERYTHING for me  :)
 
This might help. You can enter two to three different yeasts and it will show you a side by side comparison of what they can do.

https://beermaverick.com/yeasts/yeast-comparison-tool/
 
Back
Top