New User - Equipment and Mash Set Up Questions

Hi - I'm just getting started with BeerSmith2 and wanted to check on whether I've set up my parameters correctly.  I've been through the equipment setup FAQ but just want to see if anyone sees any obvious errors in my setup.

I'm doing a stove-top partial mash brew-in-a-bag as in Zainasheff's Brewing Classic Styles Appendix C - I have a 3-4 gal pot that I'm using for a mash tun with 5.5 lb of grain and 1.5 q/lb of water, mashing at 154 or so.

I then pull the bag and put it into my 10 gallon brew kettle, in which I've preheated 12 quarts of water to 168, sparging for 10 min.  I combine the water from my mash and sparge in the brew kettle, add estimated DME volume, and top off to about 6.75 gallons before doing a full boil.

So here are the settings I've used.  Does anything look out of whack?  I'm particularly interested in being able to use the recipe conversion features, because I've been overshooting my OG targets in doing my manual DME calculations. Thanks in advance for any feedback.


Equipment Profile
Mash Tun Volume: 4.00 gal
Deadspace: 0 gal
Top Up Water: 2.00 gal
Calculate Boil Volume Automatically
Initial estimates entered for boil off, trub loss and fermenter loss to get me to a 5.0 gallon bottling volume.

Mash Profile
Grain weight basis - 5.5 lb
Mash In - temperature mash 8.25 q water to 154, 60 min with zero ramp time
Sparge - temperature mash 12.00 q water to 168, 10 min with zero ramp time
Bach sparge - nothing checked
BIAB full boil - nothing checked because it's messing with my volumes vs. what I'm actually doing

Thanks,
Win

For your first stab at it, this seems ok.

I recommend that you measure the kettle top up water you use to get to pre boil volume.  You can add this to the equipment profile as kettle top up. Or you can add this to the larger kettle volume as it is heating.

To improve accuracy, make sure that you know what your actual grain absorption is before it's added to the boil kettle. Just carefully measure pre and post steep volumes. The difference is the absorption, which can be added into the major calculations as Options > Advanced > Grain Absorption. You'll need to convert it as a factor: fluid oz absorbed divided by dry grain ounces.

Thanks - I'll give it a shot on my next batch.