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Does boil volume include or exclude extract additions?

agusus

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Hopefully this isn't a stupid question, but it has big impact on IBU calculations and hop/malt balance, so I'm actually surprised I couldn't find this question already asked a bunch of times in a search of the forum history. 

When you enter your boil volume in BeerSmith for a extract or partial mash recipe, does the volume *include* the volume that the liquid/dry extract additions add? Generally when I have 3.5 gallons as my boil size, I pour 3.5g water into the pot, start bringing to a boil, and add 3lb of DME.  This increases the level in my pot to say 3.75 gallons. Does BeerSmith automatically figure out that the DME would add that amount of volume and use 3.75g as its volume in the IBU / hop utilization equations? 
I also generally add a bunch of LME as a late extract addition at T-15 minutes, so that affects hop utilization for the last 15 min. Does BeerSmith automatically increase the wort volume at that point?

This is especially important in big recipes where I'm adding say 10 lbs of LME. That adds almost 1 gallon of volume to the pot. If BeerSmith doesn't do these adjustments automatically, then it sounds like I should do them myself - I should either measure my pot volume after adding DME/LME at the start of the boil, or I should find the volume per pound ratio for me LME and DME and calculate how much volume it adds. Then I would enter the adjusted volume as my Boil Volume in BeerSmith.

 
Boil volume is the amount of liquid you start your boil with. If you are a just doing extract it would just be the amount of water you boil with. If you are doing extract + steeping grains --- you might steep your grains in a gallon of water for 30min - remove the grains and in your case top up the pot to 3.5g and get it boiling.  The primary effect of the malt / grains is the sugars they add to the water - their volume is not as crucial.

So mainly you need to create an equipment profile that has your boil volume, evaporation loss, and top off water, to get your final volume that sits in your fermenter
 
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