• Welcome to the new forum! We upgraded our forum software with a host of new boards, capabilities and features. It is also more secure.
    Jump in and join the conversation! You can learn more about the upgrade and new features here.

Grain Profile Addition

mr_beer

Grandmaster Brewer
Master Brewer
Joined
Aug 13, 2007
Messages
161
Reaction score
2
So, I decided to go down the rabbit hole of adding a 'new' grain to my BeerSmith database.

The grain is a distillers malt. Along the way I have several questions…

How is the Potential SG determined – some formula or testing or ??

What is Coarse fine Difference? What does BS do with that value??

How is color determined – by the manufacturer or testing or ?? It is not important in this application but I am interested.

Is moisture content important to BS calculations or there for information only?
 
I could not find that information at the malster's web site. That is why I asked the experts here.

Let me repeat the questions since some of the answers are not specific to one grain...

How is the Potential SG determined – some formula or testing or ??
What is Coarse fine Difference? What does BS do with that value??
How is color determined – by the manufacturer or testing or ?? It is not important in this application but I am interested.
Is moisture content important to BS calculations or there for information only?
 
I could not find that information at the malster's web site. That is why I asked the experts here.

Let me repeat the questions since some of the answers are not specific to one grain...

How is the Potential SG determined – some formula or testing or ??
What is Coarse fine Difference? What does BS do with that value??
How is color determined – by the manufacturer or testing or ?? It is not important in this application but I am interested.
Is moisture content important to BS calculations or there for information only?
The potential of the grain is determined by a congress mash performed in a laboratory. The grain is ground into a find flour and mashed at a specific temperature with a set volume of water for a set amount of time. The wort is filtered and the gravity measured. This gives the potential for that grain. It can also be reported as % yield by comparing the gravity points to the expected gravity of pure sugar (46 points or 1.046 gravity units)

FIne grind vs coarse grind: The congress mash gives the fine grind potential. A grain with a specific coarser grind is performed much as the congress mash with the fine grind is. THE difference in potential between the two mashes is reported. For BeerSmith, this really not important as the number is not used.

Color is determined by preparing a wort from that grain to a target gravity and then using a spectrophotometer to measure the absorption of light through the wort at a single wavelength. That number is converted to a color reading (SRM).

Not sure how that helps you with your entering in a grain into the library, but there are the brief descriptions of how the numbers are measured/reported.

It is highly unusual for a maltster or distributor not to know the yield or color of the malts they make/sell. Perhaps if you list the maltster, someone has some information to help you or can give you a web reference to use for entering in the data.
 
Thank you Oginme for your help and education.

One question unanswered is if BS uses the moisture content or it is just listed for information.

The maltster is Root Shoot Malting in Loveland, CO. https://www.rootshootmalting.com/
They have not been able to respond yet. Maybe they will.
My sense is that they are providers to very select local breweries and also supply Northern Brewer. With only aprox 1600 acres under cultivation they probably do not have a large support staff to handle these questions.
 
Thank you Oginme for your help and education.

One question unanswered is if BS uses the moisture content or it is just listed for information.

The maltster is Root Shoot Malting in Loveland, CO. https://www.rootshootmalting.com/
They have not been able to respond yet. Maybe they will.
My sense is that they are providers to very select local breweries and also supply Northern Brewer. With only aprox 1600 acres under cultivation they probably do not have a large support staff to handle these questions.
The picture below has the information you need. Input the yield percentage and the moisture content and the program will calculate out the potential for you.
 

Attachments

  • root shoot distillers malt.png
    root shoot distillers malt.png
    19.3 KB · Views: 5
Thank you. I have that information from the Northern Brewery web site.

What I did not understand is that apparently the moisture content is important and affects the eventual SG that BeerSmith computes. Thank you for that inference since I am adding some other grains from the same maltster.
 
Back
Top