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Beersmith using Estimated data for calculations

tom_hampton

Grandmaster Brewer
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Myk and I were having a discussion in the brewing forum.  He says that BS2 is using recipe predicted values for calculating priming sugar, and yeast starter additions.  I don't have access to my beersmith here at work, but I'm assuming that Myk is correct. 

If that's true I think that is a bug.  If I go to the trouble of measuring my bottling volume, then Beersmith should calculate my priming sugar addition based on that ACTUAL volume, rather than the predicted volume (batch_size - fermenter losses). 

The same thing is true for a yeast starter.  If my measured_batch_size and Actual OG are different than the "predicted" values, then my yeast starter should be adjusted accordingly.

I'm not sure if there are any other possible culprits, but any addition that is calculated based on brew-process results, should always prefer the "measured" parameters for input, and only use the "estimated" parameters when the measured are not available (set to 0.0 or something?).

 
You need to use estimates for the yeast starter because you're making that a day or two in advance. A little more or less boil off throws your gravity off which throws the starter off. But what's a few billion between friends?

As I said in the other bug thread I don't mind the carbonation at the moment because I'm measuring and correcting equipment profile stuff after the fact to get a good average to make BeerSmith2 as accurate as 1 was for me.
But eventually I'll want to see I have 5.25 in the fermenter and know I lose .25 to trub and not have to worry whether I lost an extra .12-.25 to blow off from the original fermenter volume. I won't even want to have to change anything in the equipment for that matter and I'll look at the estimates as only estimates.
 
Yeast starter: Yes, I agree, but there will be someone who wants to measure out 0.89654887 liters of starter to match their collected wort.  He/she could grow a 1L starter, and then measure out the precise, desired amount.  Might be crazy (as you say, what's a few yeast amongst friends), but no reason BS2 shouldn't support that guy's process.

Carbonation:  I force-carb now, so its not an issue for me specifically.  But, someone could get pretty far off based on an extra (or loss of a) gallon of beer. 
 
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