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Bottling volume & carbonation used

JupiterJesus

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Jun 13, 2011
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Under the fermentation tab, section titled "At Bottling/Kegging", there is a "Measured Bottling Volume" field. This is great, because my final bottled volume is never the same as my batch volume due to trub losses. In BeerSmith 1, I used to have to change the batch volume to my bottling volume, write down the amount of corn sugar, then change my batch volume back to the correct batch volume (12 -> 10 -> 12), so in theory this saves me a lot of headaches.

The problem is, it doesn't work. There is a "batch size" field, a "measured batch size" field, an "est bottling vol" field and a "measured bottling vol" field. The obvious thing would be to set the measured bottling volume to calculate the priming sugar - but this does nothing!

With some hunting around I found that the priming calculation is based on the values in the "water volumes" tab where there are fields for batch size and bottling/fermentation loss (why isn't this trub loss field with the rest of the bottling calculations?). BeerSmith appears to take your batch volume (not your measured batch volume!) and subtract your fermentation/trub loss to create the estimated bottling volume, which is then used for priming sugar calculation.

Long story short, this is not intuitive at all and doesn't allow you to separate your planned values from real world results. This is only disappointing because BeerSmith 2 has made HUGE strides in this by letting you record so many other fields separately between estimated and recorded values (mash efficiency, brewhouse efficiency, batch volume, etc). There should be a way to have a priming sugar calculation based on estimated values (for recipe planning) and another calculation that uses your measured batch volume and bottling volume and calculates your priming sugar and trub losses for you.
 
That is a great idea!

  Unfortunately I did not think of it before release but I'll add it to my list of things to add.

Thanks,
Brad
 
Great idea indeed.
Also, a bit on this topic, the "Carbonation Used" field in the Recipe Design tab lists what SHOULD be used based on the batch volume, which is great of course for planning, but I also seldom add the exact same amount; Could there be a "Measured Carbonation Used" whereas the user could enter the actual amount of sugar used?  This would be useful as a record-keeping item, so the recipe can be reproduced  :)
So many variables the user can enter along the way; this can only help further in replicating previous batches.  Love it.
Cheers!
 
Hi,
  I checked today and the carbonation calculation is based on the bottling volume (which is an estimate).  I would like to add another field for carbonation based on actual measured bottling volume in the future.

Brad
 
Ah! Yes! Thanks Brad, love the software!
Cheers!,
Olivier
 
Grumpyowl said:
Great idea indeed.
Also, a bit on this topic, the "Carbonation Used" field in the Recipe Design tab lists what SHOULD be used based on the batch volume, which is great of course for planning, but I also seldom add the exact same amount; Could there be a "Measured Carbonation Used" whereas the user could enter the actual amount of sugar used?  This would be useful as a record-keeping item, so the recipe can be reproduced  :)
So many variables the user can enter along the way; this can only help further in replicating previous batches.  Love it.
Cheers!

BeerSmith 1 had this and it would indeed be great to have it back.
 
Glad I found this thread.

The "Carbonation Used" feature looked ideal, but just caused me a real headache.

I carbonated based on this value, but split my batch in two.  Having entered 'Bottling Volume' into the available field I, evidently, ended up with almost double the priming sugar.

Oh dear.
You live, you learn.  You learn how to make use of 120 bottles of gushers.

When is this feature going to be resolved?
 
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