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Equipment profile change to "specific heat" not changing strike temp

uncledave

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Beersmith 2.1.01, running on a Mac, OSX 10.8.4

I'm not hitting strike temp, ending up a little hot, figured I needed to adjust the specific heat value in the equipment profile.  When I change it, nothing happens with the infusion temperature.  I've set it from .12, the value for stainless, to .50, no change in the infusion temp for a batch sparge.  I have ""Adjust temp for equipment" unchecked.

I'm in TX, it's still hot here, so I put the tun temp at 80F, grain at 80F, didn't preheat the mash tun, BS said use 168F for initial infusion.  Settled around 158F.  Should have been 156F.  This was for an am amber, was using Batch Sparge, full body.  It was supposed to be 1.060 OG, came out 1.050. 

I'm really confused, but I think that BS2 is broken.

Dave
 
You are correct that you can plug in any value for the specific heat and get the same strike temp if you leave the box unchecked, "Adjust temp for equipment". 

Unchecked, you are saying IGNORE the mash tun specific heat, mash tun weight, mash tun temp. and mash tun volume.

I have to ask if the 1.050 is your preboil gravity? A 1.050 PBG will boil down to near 1.060 OG, your post boil gravity

Your BS2 is fine!
 
Thanks for your help River,

Checked the box for "adjust temp for equip" and the strike water temp does NOTgo below 168F no matter what I set the specific heat to.

If I mash using 168F strike water, I end up around 158-160F.  This produced wort at 1.050 OG, shouldhave been 1.060 OG.  Sorry for the slip in terminology there. 

I received instructions on how to determine specific heat for my homemade mash tun, a SS keg with 2.5" foam insulation, and I will run thru that proceedure this afternoon and report back.

Next brew tho, if I can't get Brewsmith to feed me the correct strike water temp, I'll just go with 164F strike water and not use BS.

I'm close to calling BS on BS2 in the strike water temp but would sure like to use it for all aspects of brewing, but I can always go back to the pre BS2 days of guessing.  Funny part is that I had more consistant brews before I started BS2.  That's the reason I feel led astray.

Dave
 
Of course you need to let real results be your guide. That's what being a brewer is all about.

Obviously, BeerSmith doesn't have the whole picture when it comes to how you're actually brewing. Neither do we. There simply isn't enough information in your posts about your recipe, equipment, and procedures for us to be very accurate.

One thing that seems to have happened is that too much water was used in the mash. This would have caused both the higher temperature and the lower kettle gravity. If you accurately measured both grain weight and water volume according to BrewSmith, then something like lauter tun dead space or loss to trub could be factors.
 
We used 25 LB grains, and here's the BS2 estimates of everything.

American Amber
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.060 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.057 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.016 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.014 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.8 %
Actual Alcohol by Vol: 5.7 %
Bitterness: 33.1 IBUs
Calories: 191.2 kcal/12oz
Est Color: 13.8 SRM
Mash Profile
Mash Name: Single Infusion, Full Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 25 lbs
Sparge Water: 8.15 gal
Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F
Tun Temperature: 160.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE
Mash PH: 5.20
Mash Steps
Name
Description
Step Temperature
Step Time
Mash In
Add 31.25 qt of water at 168.2 F
156.0 F
45 min
Sparge Step: Fly sparge with 8.15 gal water at 168.0 F
 
From that mash, which settled at 159F, (afraid to add cool water because of dilution) we collected 13G/1.044, boiled an hour to 12G/1.050. 

The things I know are that I have some weak beer, and that the strike water caclulations for Brewsmith do not workfor me.  Yet.  ; )

Thanks,
Dave
 
My hypothetical recipe results show when there is a change in Sp. Ht. there is a change in strike temp. My equipment section is set up properly. My strike temps are accurate. We all have different ways we set up our mashes; 25 lbs. I use 9 gal. strike, 30 lbs. 10 gal. strike, 35 lbs. 11 gal strike.

Your missed PBG  by .010 could be caused by too coarse of a mill and or not mashing long enough, or most probable, sparging too fast. The 90 minute boil is kind of a standard value for home brewing. If you have to add cold water or ice, you have to, so you just have to boil longer to get the gravity you want. The software doesn't tell you to boil longer. The brewer has to make decisions to brew the beer he wants.

The only thing I see off is your mash tun temp. If your strike temp is off 2 degrees, then you adjust next batch. There are many parameters in brewing that you need to nail down consistently. Your numbers are bound to be all over the place as you learn to brew. It takes a lot of brewing to dial in your system , including your software. Remember the software is an ESTIMATION tool.
 
What was efficiency set at? 

As RB said, you told BS the tun was 160F before adding anything else, so it calc'd not much heat loss, so it was 159F. 

If it settled at 159F, then it may have been hotter, or had hot spots, and killed enzymes, adversely affecting conversion, lowering the OG. 

If you really mashed only 45 minutes, it's possible time was short, given the lower level of enzymes due to the high temps. 

Try to sparge as slowly as possible next time too.  That really helps with efficiency. 



uncledave said:
We used 25 LB grains, and here's the BS2 estimates of everything.

Est Original Gravity: 1.060 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.057 SG

Mash Profile
Mash Name: Single Infusion, Full Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 25 lbs

Tun Temperature: 160.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE
Mash PH: 5.20
Mash Steps
Mash In
Add 31.25 qt of water at 168.2 F
156.0 F
45 min
Sparge Step: Fly sparge with 8.15 gal water at 168.0 F
 
thanks Maltlicker,

The efficiency is set to 72%,,,

Also, I went out to the compost heap and inspected the spent grains, and they were sticky with I guess wort that was not extracted.  We had drained our mash too fast.  So I'm thinking you're correct.

I believe the way forward from this is to sparge slower, go in with a lower strike water temp (165F +/-), and see what happens. 

Still, and I wish now I had limited this thread to this question, is why doesn't the strike water temp change when I change the specific heat.  The reason I want this tool to work is that the temps here in TX are pretty extreme; we"ll brew outside when it's 100F and then this winter we'll be hoping for a 40 degree day. It would be nice to not have to guess. 
 
uncledave said:
Still, and I wish now I had limited this thread to this question, is why doesn't the strike water temp change when I change the specific heat.  The reason I want this tool to work is that the temps here in TX are pretty extreme; we"ll brew outside when it's 100F and then this winter we'll be hoping for a 40 degree day. It would be nice to not have to guess.

"I have ""Adjust temp for equipment" unchecked."

If this is unchecked, you're telling BS2 to ignore all those MLT figures, including specific heat.  Given TX extremes, I would check that box, and I would set the tun temp and the grain temp to actual ambient temps before brewing.  That is the math you want, I think.  You have to tell BS2 you have a tun of ABC material, sitting at XX degrees farenheit, and you're putting in XX pounds of grain at YY temp, with ZZ water at TT temp.  Then BS will crank out the strike target. 

That should generally get you close, usually ~11F higher than strike for me.  And I always do +12F and stir it out until it's what I wanted. 
 
Great idea uncledave checking your spent grain!

I fly sparge on average 10 gallons and pump to my boil pot with a 18 gallon PBV.  Elapsed time is always 60 min. every batch consistently. It is easy to calculate and measue your flow per minute.

Your future batchs will be better, because you learned something very important!
Keep it up!
 
OK, gonna work with changing grain temp & MLT temp, and i think that will give me the strike water temp.  that makes sense! 

Yep, sticking my hand into that compost pile was a leap of faith,,,  that mash was pretty ripe!  As soon as i felt that spent grain, the light bulb went off and i realized the sparge rate was one of the culprits, strike temp the other. 

As soon as I get back to my desktop machine that has BS2 I'll mess with that grain and mlt temps, and think this will have it nailed down.  And I do have that check in "Adjust temps for equipment"

As frustrated as I started out with missing that OG, I was equally frustrated with the Brewsmith not giving me good strike water temps.  I think now this is gonna work out.

Thanks for your patience and help.

Dave




 
I have not been able to change strike water temp with mash tun specific heat either.  What I did find is changing the weight of the mash tun did have the desired effect.  My strike water temp was giving me a mash temp that was consistently low by 6 degrees.  My mash tun is a ten gallon round Igloo cooler that weighs just over 9 pounds.  I now have the mash tun weight up to 18 pounds and mash temp was within one degree on my last brew day.  I am bumping it up to 19 pounds for the next batch and hope to hit mash temp right on.
 
I have noticed that in order to get equipment changes to be recognized by a recipe, you need to change equipment profiles and then change back.  You may need to save the recipe under the new profile then again under the old profile, I haven't tried without a save. 
 
As a point of note, I'm not sure others see this as well, but I get different values for infusion if I make changes to grain / mash tun temps, then uncheck then recheck Adjust temps for equipment. It seems to be accurate after that last check.
AO
 
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