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Specifying expected fermenter volume during recipe design (starter impact)

ChrisNH

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PS- in retrospect this should have gone into the "suggestions" folder. Apologies.

Hi,

Right now I am running into a way BS2 (and BS1) does things that was not an issue for my process until the starter tab was added to the recipe design. I now need to the starter to be calculated by the amount I expect to pitch my yeast into rather then the amount I consider my batch size for OG calculation purposes.

I am an All Grain and Whole Hop user (not claiming whole hops are better, I just like working with whole hops) and as a result the amount I get out of the boil can be dramatically different then the amount that goes into the Fermenter.

Currently, this is how I work my process:

I design a recipe for 6 gallons and brew it seeking to hit the correct OG at that volume.

2. I whirlpool (such as a guy with a spoon can do) and siphon off the substantial hop/trub mound. I get about 5.5 gallons, give or take depending on the hops.

3. I pitch my yeast which has been calculated for a pitch rate appropriate for the OG in my recipe and a 5.5 gallon volume.

4. I ferment expecting to package about 5 gallons, give or take.

This worked fine with 1.4 because nothing in the program except the carbonation was calculated off of that. I always calculated my carbonation off what I put into the bottling bucket anyway.

btw- THANKS for letting me specify the loss to the fermenter before bottling!!

2.0 is nice that it lets me add in how much actually went into the fermenter. I was excited to be able to take that out of my notes and put it into the actual recipe number for that session.

My problem is the yeast starter size is still calculated off of the original 6.0 gallon batch size. I recommend two solutions that would work for me:

1. Allow me to enter an estimated fermenter volume and use that to calculate starter size when provided.

or

2. Change something that currently works against my purpose in BS:

Currently, the fermenter volume in the equipment section does not work the way I would want.

1. Adding trub and chiller loss causes the amount of water into the boil volume to be increased and keeps the OG constant. This is not what seems to happen for me since the trub loss from whole hops mostly reflects absorbed wort.

2. Changing the batch size to 5.5, then adding 0.5 gallon trub loss to make the correct boil volume and fermenter volume results in the OG being skewed. For instance, in my most recent recipe the O.G. goes from 1.065 to 1.071.

3. Modifying the brew house efficiency to achieve is tricky, especially with whole hops. I would much prefer to just write off half a gallon.

I propose the following:
1. An option for trub loss to be applied only to fermenter volume and not considered for pre-boil volume or or OG calculation, just the way loss for the bottling volume is used.
2. Fermenter volume is used to calculate starter size.
3. We gain the ability to track what the expected fermenter volume was vs the realized fermenter volume for future estimates.

I presume that most people like the way it is or it wouldn't have been this way for so many years, but I would think at least a check box to do this would be very helpful to me.

Thanks for your time,

Chris

 
I was able to make the program work the way I want by changing efficiency to 68% and then putting 0.5 trub loss and letting it do its thing.

Its still not quite how I would like it to work... I would prefer to work with a 6 gallon batch that yields 5.5 (in large part because many recipes I work with have been written for 6..).. but I can live with it.


Thanks,

Chris
 
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