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5 Gallon extract OG calculation affected by equipment?

parker

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Hi All,
I am a fairly new brewer but really enjoying the hobby.
I am getting to the point of playing with recipes more so am paying more attention to Beersmith results, and ran across something I don't understand about the calculations of original gravity...

To illustrate my question - if I make an extract recipe that is ONLY 12 lbs of amber liquid extract and use the built-in "Pot (4 Gal/15.1 L) - Extract" profile, it says est original gravity should be 1.078.  If instead I use "CCHBS partial boil instructions" (came in the add in "cchbs extract recipes"), it says 1.084 SG.

Both cases are 12 lbs of malt diluted to 5 gallons at the end.  Why would the OG be different?  I get that IBUs from the hops might be different due to boil volume & gravity of wort issues, but why the difference in OG?

For what its worth, I brewed a wee heavy that the pot 4 gal said 1.085 and the CCHBS said 1.092 and I measured it to be 1.090, so I am inclined to think that whatever the CCHBS equipment is doing to the equation is closer to my reality...

Thanks for any insights,
Parker
 
I am not familiar with the profiles you cited, but the OG may be different due to system losses (losses to trub and chilling) between to different profiles.
 
parker said:
I brewed a wee heavy that the pot 4 gal said 1.085 and the CCHBS said 1.092 and I measured it to be 1.090, so I am inclined to think that whatever the CCHBS equipment is doing to the equation is closer to my reality...

Whenever you read a recipe, you have to be aware of the equipment it's designed to be used with. In brewing magazines they will give you a reference somewhere neat the table of contents. It'll become more important if you transition to all grain, where mash efficiency varies.

The difference between the two predicted gravities can be accounted for by the half gallon of loss to trub in the BeerSmith profile. This apparently doesn't exist in the CCHBS version you cited.
 
Thanks for the replies...

I am a bit confused by the terminology, and would really like to learn.  Thanks in advance for your patience.

Are we talking about the "Loss to Trub and Chiller" field in the equipment? That does in fact seem to be the parameter that is affecting the OG the way I described -  If I make them the same in the 2 profiles, they give the same result for OG the way I would have expected - thanks.

I am puzzled though.  What does "trub" mean in the context of OG?  I had never tweaked these numbers from their defaults so I hadn't given them any consideration.  I assume "chiller" here means concentrated wort left in the lines and in the chiller if using a plate chiller or some such (so if I am using an immersion chiller or just an ice bath it would be basically 0), but how is there loss to trub that affects the OG?  Maybe the bit that might stick to hops in the strainer is being called trub?

For the 3 and 4 gallon pot extract profiles, it is showing 0.5 gallons for "loss to trub  and chiller" - is that implying that 1/2 a gallon of concentrated extract being left in the pot/chiller and doesn't make it to the fermenter? 

That would seem like a lot unless I spill ;) 

Would "0" or maybe 0.1 (if we are talking about loss in straining hops) be a better typical value for extract brewers?

Thanks,
Parker

 
parker said:
Thanks for the replies...

I am a bit confused by the terminology, and would really like to learn.  Thanks in advance for your patience.

Are we talking about the "Loss to Trub and Chiller" field in the equipment? That does in fact seem to be the parameter that is affecting the OG the way I described -  If I make them the same in the 2 profiles, they give the same result for OG the way I would have expected - thanks.


I think you have the hang of it.  The loss to trub and chiller is kind of a catch all for any system losses between the water collection from mashing, or in your case mixing in the extract with the water, and the fermentor beyond any volume losses in boiling.


I am puzzled though.  What does "trub" mean in the context of OG?  I had never tweaked these numbers from their defaults so I hadn't given them any consideration.  I assume "chiller" here means concentrated wort left in the lines and in the chiller if using a plate chiller or some such (so if I am using an immersion chiller or just an ice bath it would be basically 0), but how is there loss to trub that affects the OG?  Maybe the bit that might stick to hops in the strainer is being called trub?


Trub is all the 'solids' left in the kettle and the water it contains.  For extract, there should be a minimal amount of trub coming from coagulated proteins and hop residue.  In my system (all-grain BIAB), I plan on leaving a liter of trub and wort in the kettle when transferring to the fermentor to leave behind much of that material.  Planning on leaving a given amount gives me a predictable amount for consistency. 

Chiller relates to the losses you described above, but also any known amount that you may take for sampling.



For the 3 and 4 gallon pot extract profiles, it is showing 0.5 gallons for "loss to trub  and chiller" - is that implying that 1/2 a gallon of concentrated extract being left in the pot/chiller and doesn't make it to the fermenter? 

One thing that will help you out is to take the stock profiles which come with BeerSmith and customize it to your particular process. Brad does have a video and blog on how to customize the equipment profile which will help.  You can base it off of an existing profile and just save it with a name you can find easily.  Since you have some recipes under your belt, you can use what you have done so far and your results to help with 'dialing' in the equipment profile to meet your needs.  Then on your next few brews, record your volumes and gravity measurements and use those to improve the accuracy of your profile so that it accurately reflects your results.

That would seem like a lot unless I spill ;) 

Would "0" or maybe 0.1 (if we are talking about loss in straining hops) be a better typical value for extract brewers?

You can set it to zero as a starting point and then once you have it measured for a few brews modify it to reflect your actual results.  I can tell you that when I started out brewing with extract it was 'all in' for me.  This seemed to work well as a start. 

Thanks,
Parker
 
I think I understand now.
Thanks for the help!

Parker
 
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