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Trub Loss and Boil SG / Batch volumes

MaltLicker said:
KnowItAll said:
For every unit of trub loss entered in BeerSmith, BeerSmith simply adds the equivalent amount to the mash volume, increases the post boil volume, then increases the mash efficiency (even above 100%) to keep the SG the same.  This is not correct.

It appears BeerSmith treats the trub loss as an additional boil off loss, which is incorrect.  Trub loss is actually lost wort, and the mash water volume and recipe ingredients need to be scaled up to match the loss, or the volume to fermenter needs to be decreased.

I don't know the code behind this part of it, but to me the logic behind it is this..... you measure your pots, volumes, any losses, etc., and enter them all in a brewing software (any software).  These numbers are the constraints that are expected to apply on the next brew, and they are "static" for that brew.  Meaning that they are your best forecast for your system that day.  So the software takes those constraints and applies your EE% to the grain bill and forecasts SG, SRM and IBU accordingly.
Please read, carefully, the problem I stated many times.  This problem is not that hard to understand, if you can admit it is a problem. 

MaltLicker said:
I do not believe brewing software is written so we can play "what if" scenario's with things like trub loss.  Your expected losses before a brew should be a single best guess.  Why would anyone have multiple guesses as to what their losses will be for the next brew?  If I think losses will be higher due to leaf hops, I would bump up that loss before finalizing the recipe.
That is what I was trying to do by increasing trub/chiller loss.  This is not a 'what if', and even if it was, this is exactly the type of 'what if' scenario the software should handle, since it is no different than calculating any other brew- BeerSmith just does it incorrectly. 

MaltLicker said:
If I grossly mis-guess those losses, then my volume suffers, but if I lautered well, collected the boil volume, got close to pre-boil gravity, and evaporated about right, then I should make approximately the beer I aimed at, but have less of it.
Not if BeerSmith told you to add 3 gallons of additional mash water to offset trub/chiller losses, but didn't increase ingredients, or reduce the volume to the fermenter, it just increased your mash efficiency to compensate for the extra water it told you to add, so that the SG remains the same.

MaltLicker said:
Same thing happens when I spill some.  An unexpected spill or a poorly forecast loss of any type costs you volume, but it is your brewing processes that affect your dynamic results (SG, SRM and IBU).    A Monte Carlo simulation would provide the "what if" scenarios for as many factors as one wished to put into play, but the goal in brewing is to maximize consistency from brew-to-brew and eliminate such variance.
A Monte Carlo simulation has nothing to do with this issue.  I don't know why it would even be brought up.
If I know I will spill 1 gal, my kettle has no dip tube so I leave 1 gal, hops will absorb 1 gal, and my chiller traps 1 gal, I would expect to be able input those into 'trub/chiller loss', and have BeerSmith calculate my batch correctly.  The only ways to do this is by increasing post boil volume (in the kettle) and the ingredients, or decreasing the volume delivered to the fermenter.  There is no other way, especially not adding more water and magically increasing my mash efficiency since I will be leaving a bunch of wort in the kettle.

MaltLicker said:
In the same manner, I can't imagine the NASA team plugging in multiple guesses on fuel consumption and then being upset when Curiosity runs out of gas getting there.  Logically, they learn from tests and prior flights and over-engineer what they can to ensure success.
I also can't imagine them using software where they enter all the relevant parameters to calculate the amount of fuel needed, including how much remains in the tank inaccessible to the pump, and the software simply adds a bunch of water to gas to account for it, and increases the MPG parameter so that it seems like it will still make the planned distance.

MaltLicker said:
And I do not think this forum is cultish at all.  I and others have found errors inside BeerSmith's inner workings and Brad has fixed them.  He likes feedback that improves the product and that is part of the success of the program.
How do you explain the continued avoidance of addressing the issue, which has now been explicitly defined, by blaming it on the user?

Brad did respond to the initial post, but I don't think the initial post outlined the problem correctly.  Subsequent posters, myself included have outlined the problem very clearly, yet the collective continues to cloud the issue with completely unrelated information about effeciency, playing tricks on the poor BeerSmith, and Monte Carlo simulations.

This is a clear cut error: Increasing trub/chiller loss results in increased mash water volume, no ingredient increases, no decreasing volume to the fermenter, a larger post boil volume in the kettle, yet retains the same original SG post boil.

Also, I was mistaken previously that BeerSmith handles this correctly if the equipment is already configured.  I have now found that when converting a recipe to existing eqipment with trub losses, the same error occurs.
 
You still havent done the things you could to sort this out and have failed to see anyones side but your own. If you went through a few batches and brewed them and entered all measurements, pre boil vol/grav, post boil vol/grav, losses in kettle, losses in fermenter and all that jazz BS will figure everything for you. The reason Im saying this is not a bug is that in a normal brewing session you would never encounter this. This is something that is a result of entering non real world values. How can you even have 10 gallons in yer kettle but lose 10 gallons to trub. That is what were talking about. Also why would you be changing your equipment back and forth in a brewday. No one here is finding fault with your argument about if this is a bug. What Im saying is that in a real world brewday none of these bugs will occur/make or break your brew session. And yes it is not qt per gallon addition I meant qt per 5 gallon batch (for lots of late addition or whole hops). Ill quote it from MR Maltys website here.    http://www.mrmalty.com/late_hopping.php 

Say Jamil and Sousa are wrong and those are fighting words. LOL JK.

Sousa suggests increasing the wort volume in the boil kettle. "You'll lose some of your wort to the large amount of hops in the kettle," he said. "Increase your batch size an extra quart per five gallons to compensate."
 
All of this looks like it is solved through the Scale Recipe function.  ::)

Create duplicate equipment profiles with various trub levels, yields and/or efficiencies. It all sorts out. Same with any other adjustable parameter.

BS does not care how many profiles you create. You can even name them as you please.

-----

FWIW, if I share my knowledge about brewing, I gain nothing. Reject it, and you'll gain exactly the same amount.
 
tom_hampton said:
Knowitall-

You ARE correct, but you are bordering on rude.  It is not necessary for you to use the language that you are (idiotic, "cult members", etc) in order to try and make your point.  Disagreement, dissent, and difference of opinion is not grounds for your approach....even if the person is simply wrong.  If you can't make your point without using language like the above...then simply don't post.

This issue has been brought up multiple times, with the same responses from the usual suspects.  I was courteous enough in my initial post when I more thoroughly defined the issue, and yet received the same response- I don't know how to use the software, don't know my equipment, don't understand what efficiency means, am playing tricks on the software, etc.

It is obvious that the responders are either not thoroughly reading my posts (and others'), or are not understanding what the issue is.

Sadly, even though you say I am correct, it is apparent you also don't understand the issue at hand, and have not read the posts thoroughly that explain completely the issue with the trub/chiller losses field.

Again, BeerSmith completely, utterly, and undeniably, does not handle the trub/chiller losses field correctly.  When only the 'trub/chiller losses' field is modified, BeerSmith increases the mash water volume.  If the intended use case is to then immediately go and scale the batch size and ingredients by the same volume increase, there is no reason for the side effect of additional mash water being added to the recipe when only trub loss is added.  By the way, the extra mash water that gets added by changing trub losses doesn't go away if you subsequently scale the batch the same amount as the trub losses, it is added to new scaled batch water.

If 'trub/chiller losses' are only going to be used for brewhouse eff calcs, it shouldn't impact the recipe amounts, it should only reduce the batch size, which is defined by 'as measured to the fermenter'.  This is even in the pop up for the field.

Something to address is what BeerSmith is calling 'batch size', which it defines as 'to the fermenter', and whether it is using it that way in calculations, or is using kettle volume.  Something does not jive.  Regardless, BeerSmith should not add water to the mash volume when trub losses are increased, and not do anything else.  And especially not fudge all the indicators like IBU, color, SG, kettle volume, etc to make it appear that everything is OK.

BeerSmith appears to pull off this trick by upping efficiencies, at least the mash efficiency definitely increases, sometimes above 100%.  As much I would love to increase my mash efficiency, especially above 100%, by simply buying a $20 piece of software, this is not something BeerSmith can possibly do for my system, yet it insists on doing it when I add trub/chiller losses in the proper field.
 

tom_hampton said:
There are two mixed topics in this thread: Hops losses, and efficiency.  They are best treated separately.
There are two topics in this thread only because of the responders who continually blame a lack of understanding about 'efficiency' for why the posters feel there is an error in BeerSmith.  The original problem needs to be fixed, that BeerSmith increases mash water volume and kettle volume, but does not increase the ingredient amounts.  Yet, miraculously, all of the indicators remain the same.

Efficiency calculations are completely irrelevant and off topic.

tom_hampton said:
Beersmith is pretty rudimentary in its usage of efficiency.  It is important to understand two things:

[list type=decimal]
[*]Brewhouse efficiency is a user controlled input.  It is treated as gospel.
[*]Mash efficiency is NOT USED by beersmith.  It is simply a calculation that is based on brewhouse efficiency and system losses.
[/list]
I have seen, and can recreate, BeerSmith increasing Mash Efficiency when trub losses are increased.  Whether this is BeerSmith 'using' the value, or not, I cannot say without seeing the code.  However, it could be how it is able to maintain/display the same SG, color, IBUs, etc. even though additional water is added to the mash, the post boil volume increases, and yet no grain bill increases are made.

Even if it doesn't use mash eff for anything, that is not the point of this thread.  Again, any talk of efficiencies is off topic.  The mash efficiency anomaly has only been brought up since its value changes as a side effect of entering different trub losses.

The point of this thread is the main side effect caused by entering a trub loss which results in an increase in mash water volume with no other (real) compensatory changes.  Even worse, BeerSmith fudges all of the top level indicators, IBU, color, SG, post boil volume, etc., to make it appear the recipe is correct.

There is no logical reason for this.  The only use could be for someone wanting to find out what mash eff is required if they add a bunch of system losses, but not have to add any extra ingredients.  This has little practical application, since most brewers have limited ability to increase mash efficiency.

tom_hampton said:
Efficiency
--------------

It would be more accurate to enter MASH efficiency + losses, and then calculate brewhouse efficiency.  Mash efficiency + grain weight makes wort with a certain SG.  Trub losses, etc. then degrade mash efficiency to brewhouse eff.  This would allow you to adjust trub-loss for things like hop losses without having it cause weird things to happen to mash efficiency.
Trub losses have absolutely no impact on mash efficiency.  Trub losses are used as one of the inputs to brewhouse efficiency.  I don't even care about efficiencies, and they shouldn't even be part of this thread.  The topic of this thread is that compensation for trub losses should either decrease the batch size (to the fermenter, as it is defined), or increase the kettle volume and add additional ingredients to maintain everything- volume to fermenter, color, SG, IBU, etc.  BeerSmith does not do this correctly when trub losses are entered in the appropriate field. 

tom_hampton said:
That said....its not that big of a deal in the real world...for average recipes.  In reality if you define a real equipment profile, with real losses, and associated brewhouse efficiency beersmith will be close...not right, but close.  Sure you can fake out beersmith and discover several degenerate cases.  But, a single iteration through making a beer and adjusting the eff/loss numbers based on actual data will converge on reality.  If you are going to talk about Laplace and Gauss...then I'm guessing you understand convergence and how to prove that an iterative feedback system converges.
How about if I first use BeerSmith with a good idea of my various parameters, and enter them the first time, with a 2 gallon trub/chiller/hop loss, should I not be able to input those and expect to have the trub losses calculated correctly by scaling the recipe, or at least have the batch size reduced?  Or, at very least, not be lied to by having the SG, IBU, color, etc. remain the same, but the 'fine print' says that my mash efficiency and other calc values have been increased to maintain the correct SG, IBU, color, etc. due to the added water volume?

RE:Laplace et al- I just made up that ridiculous sentence to counter the nonsense about transitive vs. whatever he called the other mythical state of solids in the wort.  They were both pure gibberish.  I am aware how to apply their various techniques, although the hop absorption compensation problem is not difficult, and doesn't require any of those methods.  At first glance it is just some basic calculus, but I haven't put any thought into it yet, so I don't have any approaches that are candidates.

tom_hampton said:
I'm not saying its not wrong....I'm just saying its not really as bad as you claim.  In most real cases the effect is less than a 5% error.  Even in those cases where it is larger than that, simply making the beer once, and correcting the recipe for reality will narrow the error to well less than 5%...and more than likely better than your own consistency from batch to batch.
The error is whatever the percentage of trub loss/ batch size is, because it is being calculated wrong.
This makes sharing recipes very difficult, because someone's compensation for the erroneous trub loss number could impact your brew when you scale it for less trub loss.

The trub/chiller loss field needs to either be removed; not cause any side effects like increasing mash volume; scale the recipe completely, not just increase the mash volume; or reduce the batch size (to the fermenter like the popup says).  It is currently a booby trap.

tom_hampton said:
Hop Losses
-----------------

Again, you are essentially correct.  The problem with what you say is that the magnitude of the effect is not as large as you make it out to be.  Hops absorb roughly 4x their dry-weight in wort during the boil.  So, 4 dry ounces of hops would absorb 16 ounces of wort...a pint.  So, your typical IPA recipe loses an un-accounted for "pint".  Very few people can accurately measure their kettle volumes to the QUART.  So, a pint or so of additional loss is "noise".  That's 1/2 liter out of 23L....~2%
The measurements I have heard and experienced for leaf hops are usually between 8-16 oz/ hop oz.  For my 13.5 Gal batch, that would be between .5 - 1 gal of loss, just for the hops.  I don't care about the loss, and would even accept more.  What I don't want, is for BeerSmith to dilute my wort by ~20% when it tells me to add mash water equivalent to my trub loss, but doesn't increase the ingredients to maintain the SG. 

tom_hampton said:
The above is adequate for beers with less than 100 IBUs.  For "Pliny" type beers (200-300+ IBUs) it is not.  These beers have the better part of 3/4 lbs of hops in 5 gallons of wort.  This results in about 3 lbs of wort loss...maybe a little more depending on siphon/dip-tupe-screen configurations.  That's roughly an extra half-gallon of wort.  In these cases, the easiest way to compensate is to increase the batch size by ~1/2 gallon (or more to be safe).  Or you can adjust the trub loss, its equivalent.
It is not equivalent, and this is what every poster coming to this thread after experiencing it has discovered, and what every naysayer that responds keeps trying to explain away with efficiency, or some other nonsense.

tom_hampton said:
Once you've done this you simply go back and adjust the Hops and Grains to compensate for the increased boil volume.
This is the crux of the issue.  The recipe/batch size has to be scaled by the same amount as the trub loss.  The issue is that if only trub loss is changed, BeerSmith immediately adds mash water, and then increases mash efficiency to maintain SG and other tricks to keep the IBU, color, etc the same.  There is no indication that this has been done, or that anything else has to be done, other than mash efficiency magically changing.  The added mash volumes are there as long as the trub loss is there.  Scaling the recipe using the scaling tool just adds more to them.

It gets worse every time I try test cases.  If I apply equipment to a recipe that has trub losses, the trub losses trigger the mash volume increase, then when the recipe is scaled, as you suggest doing, it adds the additional volume for the scaled recipe.  This is no different than adding trub losses to the same recipe.  BeerSmith is not handling trub losses correctly.  It is very apparent.

If the only thing 'trub/chiller losses' is important for is for calculating brew house efficiency, increasing the value alone shouldn't cause an increase in the prescribed mash volume.  If the user has to perform the additional step of scaling the batch up by the same amount has to be done anyway, the mash volume, grain bill, hops, etc., will be done correctly there anyway (although BeerSmith doesn't do this correctly if trub losses are non-zero).  The worst thing it could do is simply increase the mash water, and also maintain the same SG, IBUs, color, etc., without adding ingredients.

tom_hampton said:
  Sure, this increases the hops absorption, but only by 5-10% of the total absorption...or roughly 1 fl oz.  For my Pliny recipe, I simply increase the batch size by a full gallon, and adjust grain/hops to suit.  Then I brew the beer, adjust and repeat.  I end up with a little extra wort (maybe a quart or 2).
Apparently there is no need to adjust the grain bill to account for losses, you just let BeerSmith magically increase your mash and other efficiencies (above 100% even) so that the extra mash water volume it tells you to add doesn't change the SG, color, IBU, etc.

I assume you are scaling the batch volume, without using the trub/chiller loss field, to account for losses; and then doing the math outside of BeerSmith to get your volume to the fermenter, minus losses.  That about the only way it works correctly, unless you want to manual adjust individual ingredients to compensate for the added water volume.

tom_hampton said:
It works.  Could it be done better?  Sure...as described above.  But, ITS NOT THAT BIG OF A DEAL.
It doesn't work.  Changing only the trub/chiller loss field simply causes additional water to be added to the mash.  The worst part is that it hides the iimpact to the SG, color, ibu, etc. by increasing the mash efficiency and other things to compensate.

tom_hampton said:
If your this worried about this, then you should also consider that mash efficiency (and as a consequence Brewhouse eff.) are a function of target OG.  I find that its about (3-5)% eff loss / 10 gravity points.  This is a bigger effect than the one discussed above.
I am aware of the swings in SG due to mash efficiency.  For that very reason, I don't want things further compounded by BeerSmith diluting my wort by the amount of trub/chiller loss I input.

I figured out how to work around the issue in 5 minutes, once I noticed what was happening.  It is easy enough to leave trub/chiller losses at 0, and scale the batch size manually (using the scaling tool) to account for kettle losses.

The whole point of this sub-forum is for bugs, which is why I posted.  This is most definitely a bug, regardless of the workarounds available.  It is currently a pitfall waiting to catch unwitting users unawares.  The trub/chiller loss field should either be removed, or used correctly to calculate the recipe compensations.

I realize I have repeated myself many, many times.  I did this in the hopes that one of them would get read.  This is a very simple problem to recreate, understand, and fix- once you believe, of course.
 
maddspoiler said:
You still havent done the things you could to sort this out and have failed to see anyones side but your own.
I figured out how to work around it in less than 5 minutes.  That doesn't make it not a bug, and not a proper post in this thread and sub-forum.

I am not the one with deep-seated beliefs and convictions about BeerSmith.  No one has presented any argument that shows that BeerSmith handles trub losses correctly.  The only responses have been either BeerSmith is perfect; you are wrong; or, even if BeerSmith is wrong, it ain't that bad- deal with it.

This sub-forum is supposed to be for identifying bugs.  How BeerSmith handles trub loss is defective, period.

maddspoiler said:
If you went through a few batches and brewed them and entered all measurements, pre boil vol/grav, post boil vol/grav, losses in kettle, losses in fermenter and all that jazz BS will figure everything for you.
I am using BeerSmith for the first time, and already know my system losses and efficiencies.  I do not need to blindly follow incorrect volumes and grain bills for 5+ brews until I have enough data to enter compensatory fudge factors to account for BeerSmith's defective calcs.  And if I hadn't noticed BeerSmith's trub loss error that wanted to add an addition 2.5G of water, my OG would have been way off.

maddspoiler said:
The reason Im saying this is not a bug is that in a normal brewing session you would never encounter this. This is something that is a result of entering non real world values. How can you even have 10 gallons in yer kettle but lose 10 gallons to trub. That is what were talking about.
I never said anything about 10 gallons of trub loss on a 10 gallon batch, although that is a perfectly reasonable thing to expect the software to handle it properly, since it is no different than a .5 g trub loss on a 5 gal batch.  BeerSmith doesn't do that correctly either, or a .001g trub loss either.  It is just that the effect is too small to notice.  BeerSmith is not handling the trub loss field correctly, for a fact.

maddspoiler said:
Also why would you be changing your equipment back and forth in a brewday.
This is not within a brewday, and why are you making things up?  This was discovered in trying to account for leaf hop additions and trub/kettle loss for a brew that would have ~2.5 g of loss on a 13.5G batch, which is not unreasonable, but can be improved.  Due to dip tube issues that won't be fixed before brewing, this is what I am dealing with. 

maddspoiler said:
No one here is finding fault with your argument about if this is a bug.
Really?
maddspoiler said:
So I agree with MaltLicker that its not an issue with beersmith. The issue is the lack of knowledge of how to set up equipment profiles and stumbling onto what seems to be a programming error. Its like having a calculator in math class. Yeah the calculator gives you the answer but if you dont know the fundamentals or how to solve the problem by hand or show your work its a meaningless tool.
Or even this other one from you in the same post where you say made the statement two quotes up:
maddspoiler said:
The reason Im saying this is not a bug is that in a normal brewing session you would never encounter this.

I could go back and find many more responses, some saying it is a bug, then a sentence later saying it isn't.  Other say flatly that there is no bug related to trub loss.  The fact is, there is a bug.  It is just that for most people, the trub loss is small or has been compensated for elsewhere by using fudge factors.  It does not make it any less of a bug, which is the purpose of this sub-forum.  It is not the 'find a way to make a bug seem less wrong than it is' forum.

maddspoiler said:
What Im saying is that in a real world brewday none of these bugs will occur/make or break your brew session.
Yes, it would have, on the very brew I tried to use BeerSmith for.

maddspoiler said:
And yes it is not qt per gallon addition I meant qt per 5 gallon batch (for lots of late addition or whole hops). Ill quote it from MR Maltys website here.    http://www.mrmalty.com/late_hopping.php
That is still not correct.  The amount of extra volume needed (kettle loss) is not dependent on batch size, it is dependent on the amount of hops.  Hence, why I specified the correct ratio uses volume of wort/ weight of hops.  Guidelines generally range from 8-16 oz wort/ 1 oz leaf hops.

maddspoiler said:
Say Jamil and Sousa are wrong and those are fighting words. LOL JK.
I can't even listen to his show. Jamil is like the midget court jester dancing around trying to get a laugh.  Palmer is more of an authority on scientific/engineering issues.
Sousa suggests increasing the wort volume in the boil kettle. "You'll lose some of your wort to the large amount of hops in the kettle," he said. "Increase your batch size an extra quart per five gallons to compensate."
That is the most unscientific piece of brewing information I have heard in quite some time.  So, the hops see the extra quart coming and calls dibs on who gets it, and the slow ones get the dry tough tit?  Or do they rochambeau for it?
 
brewfun said:
All of this looks like it is solved through the Scale Recipe function.  ::)
Except for it isn't.  I initially thought that as well, but did see some weird ratcheting of grain when switching more than once.  I tried a few more test cases, and any trub loss value will add an equal amount of mash volume, regardless of what the recipe is scaled to.  The extra water is always there compared to the same recipe with the same batch size, but no trub loss.

brewfun said:
Create duplicate equipment profiles with various trub levels, yields and/or efficiencies. It all sorts out. Same with any other adjustable parameter.
There is an easier way, which is to use the 'edit equipment settings for this recipe', which works the same as making new profile, with the trub error and all.  When the trub error is fixed, this will be a much more suitable route for most things.

brewfun said:
BS does not care how many profiles you create. You can even name them as you please.

To add to the confusion, I believe an issue that is contributing to the various problems with BeerSmith is that there is a batch size associated with equipment.  This causes issues with the architecture.  Equipment doesn't have batch sizes, it has max capacities and losses.  The batch size for a set of equipment is only limited by the capacity.  The losses can be either percentage or fixed.  This would make standardizing/sharing recipes much easier.[/quote]
 
Off topic but...
There is an Ignore User Button Under-Profile-Modify Profile-Buddies-Ignore List.
Sorry I wont be able to see whatever kind of psychobabble The Troll comes up with next though.  :'(
 
maddspoiler said:
Off topic but...
There is an Ignore User Button Under-Profile-Modify Profile-Buddies-Ignore List.
Sorry I wont be able to see whatever kind of psychobabble The Troll comes up with next though.  :'(
The "head in the sand" defense.  That seems appropriate.
This is like the twilight zone in here.  Go to any other forum, and you will find dozens of similar threads related to BeerSmith's incorrect handling of trub/chiller losses.  Readers of those threads try adding trub/chiller losses, see the effect, and agree it is not right.  No one responds that somehow the user is 'doing it wrong', and attempts to explain away the obvious.
 
brewfun said:
If I am reading KnowItAll correctly, the premise is that the SG should change based on volume. BS does this in recipe design.
What I am saying is that if you add 2 gallons of extra water to compensate for 2 gallons of post boil kettle losses to equipment, trub, St. Arnold, etc. ('losses to trub AND CHILLER), and don't increase the ingredients, there is no way the qualities of the wort delivered to the ferment will be the same.  However, BeerSmith is doing exactly this by using some kind of magic trick to make the slider bar indicators tell you that it will be, after it tells you to add only plain water to offset post boil kettle losses (losses to trub and chiller).

The only way to change volume and keep the final wort quality the same in 'recipe design' is to scale the 'batch size', which is defined by BeerSmith as 'volume to fermenter'- just hover your pointer over 'batch size' and it will pop up with that definition.  The 'trub/chiller loss' is for post boil losses of wort.

Increasing the batch size to account for lost wort in the kettle is a valid workaround.  However, the 'trub/chiller loss' still needs to be set to 0 to make any recipe correct, since all it does it cause a water addition, then it does some kind of magic to keep for SG, color, IBUs, and batch size the same.

brewfun said:
But, in equipment design, BS makes the assumption that the target SG and net yield are the bottom line, not grain efficiency. Thus, it is calculating for starting water volume and telling you the mash efficiency required to achieve target gravity.
In pure equipment design mode BeerSmith has no way of knowing what the 'target SG' is.  I think you are the one making the assumptions.

When switching from one equipment profile to another, BeerSmith will take the 'losses to trub and chiller' and simply add that volume of water to the mash water volume and then it does some magic to make the flavor profile stay the same.  An increase in the 'mash efficiency' is an indicator of that magic.

If BeerSmith compensates for equipment losses of post boil wort by only adding plain water without having to add any ingredients back in, that is not the correct approach.  The only loss adding plain water can compensate for is boil off, since it is ~100% water being lost, but that is boil loss, not a post-boil wort loss.

If you still think BeerSmith's adding only water to account for post boil wort losses, then telling you to increase your efficiency, hop utilization, color extraction, etc. to compensate for the added water is the appropriate way to handle this, then, for you, this is not a bug.

brewfun said:
Secondly, KnowItAll seems to be assuming Hot & cold break to be additive dispacements, when they are transitive. That is, they exist in the malt, pre boil and reflected in the SG. Then then transition into non-soluble form, but in doing so, they actually reduce the SG, but not the volume. This is countered by concentration, through evaporation, thus we observe an increase in SG.
That makes absolutely no sense.  Hot break, cold break, grain trub, hop trub, are all virtually 100% wort.  There is a solid component to them, but they are more like sludgy sponges in the bottom of the kettle.  Compensating for the solid portion is much less important than compensating for the wort volume loss caused by their sponge effect.

Besides, the field being discussed here is called "losses to trub and CHILLER".
I will be interested in seeing how you can explain a loss to the chiller as not being a loss of both sugars and wort volume.

brewfun said:
If you're able to get a truly significant cold break, you will observe a tiny drop in OG, pre vs. post chill.
I am not concerned with miniscule effects on my OG, I am concerned with massive ones when I use the 'losses to trub and chiller' field to compensate for losses to the post boil kettle volume ('batch size').  That is what that field is explicitly for, but it does not function properly.

The workaround appears to be to leave 'losses to trub and chiller' at '0', and scale the recipe to increase the batch size instead.  You just have to make a note somewhere outside of BeerSmith to remember by what amount you increased the batch by to compensate for post boil kettle losses since your 'batch size' will be larger than what you desire to put 'into the fermenter'.
 
I'm inclined to agree with KnowItAll. Riddle me this, MaltLicker (and I'm using your analogy here): why does trub loss count as "spilled wort" (and thus impact efficiency) while fermenter loss does not?

Perhaps the most accurate stat would be "packaging efficiency", which would be (packaging gravity points x packaging volume) / (expected gravity points x preboil volume).

Thoughts?
 
The formula that I just posted was pretty horked. When proposing "packaging efficiency", I should have probably quantified it as: (packaging sg * packaging vol) / (potential sg * packaging vol). The number would be low, but it would also be a more accurate representation of your system than anything that exists now.
 
rscot231 said:
I'm inclined to agree with KnowItAll. Riddle me this, MaltLicker (and I'm using your analogy here): why does trub loss count as "spilled wort" (and thus impact efficiency) while fermenter loss does not?

Perhaps the most accurate stat would be "packaging efficiency", which would be (packaging gravity points x packaging volume) / (expected gravity points x preboil volume).

Thoughts?
This topic is a confusing one.  The problem most users encounter is the one you have noticed- they expect BeerSmith to adjust for trub loss without having to change Brew House Eff (to the fermenter).  This is not the case.  BHE includes trub losses, and needs to be adjusted anytime trub loss is changed.  If you don't, BeerSmith adjusts 'mash efficiency' (to the kettle), a number the user doesn't control, to make the recipe match the Brew House Eff (to the fermenter).

My gripe is that not only is using 'to the fermenter' confusing and traps nearly every first time user (and is an issue many long time users are not even aware they are using incorrectly); but also that even if 'to the fermenter' Brew House Eff is used correctly, BeerSmith generates incorrect numbers.

The fanboys' argument is that not understanding that BHE is to the fermentor and that it needs to be adjusted for trub loss is a user error, and therefore it is not a 'bug'.

Here is more detail on the two issues:
One is a design choice (a poor one) to choose 'to the fermenter' for Brew House Efficiency.  It is a useless number, and causes unnecessary calculations to be made when changes to trub loss are made, or a new mash efficiency is to be used.  The effects of this are what confuses most new users.  When a change is made to trub loss, the 'to the fermentor' Brew House Eff needs to be adjusted accordingly (lowered for more loss, raised for less).  If this isn't done, you won't notice any difference to your recipe's OG, and only small qualitative differences (if any).  BeerSmith pulls this trick off by raising/lowering your mash efficiency (which is only a BeerSmith generated number) to match the same 'to the fermenter' efficiency but now with increased/decreased trub losses.

The second issue is that a true calculation error occurs even if your 'to the fermentor' efficiency is correct.  This error is small for 5 gal batches, but is still real, and the impact is greater for larger batch sizes.  Through some reverse engineering, I think I have found why this error occurs.  It is due to 'trub loss' being included twice.  Once at its true value, and a second time as a small percentage in the calculations.  This is a side effect of using 'to the fermenter' efficiency.

There is an even larger issue/error if using batch/no sparge of BIAB.  The only workaround for these methods is to adjust your efficiency for different OGs and grain bills.  Your fermentor efficiency, as well as kettle efficiency, are different for each OG and grain bill.  This is caused by the different amount of sugars left in the grain according to the OG in the mash tun.  Fly sparging is closer to the same 'kettle efficiency' for a range of OGs.
 
I believe we are in violent agreement. I'll try to restate my point of view more simply to verify.

My gripe is that using the default formulas, I can increase my brewhouse efficiency by dumping the entire contents of the kettle into the fermenter. I have zero kettle trub loss at that point, but the 4 inches of trub in the fermenter don't count against brewhouse efficiency. I end up with the same amount of packaged beer either way, but one way impacts my efficiency and the other doesn't. That doesn't seem right.
 
Sorry to bring up an old topic but I still have an issue with this. Is there a fix?
 
Reading through the many posts on this topic and I can understand where you are coming from.  Realize that this is not a 'bug' that needs a 'fix'.  Your issue is in how you personally view the process from input to output versus how others view it. 

Most breweries and homebrewers have fixed volume fermentors.  We cannot alter that volume to accommodate additional trub and in order to maximize the throughput of the fermentor, choose to leave much of the trub behind in the process.  Thus for most of us, the ending volume of wort TO the fermentor is a good volume to consider making it a constant for the purposes of modeling the process.

You can look at modeling it to provide "beer out" of the fermentor as your fixed constant, which means that you need to look for a different software package or come up with your own.  Plenty of others have done so.

The other variable in the process helps to determine the amount of sugars which are extracted from the grain or added into the kettle or any other point in the process.  BeerSmith opts to use BHE as this fixed variable.  Personally, I would prefer it to use mash efficiency as I think it is a more consistent value for me.  However, this is not what the designer selected and you must decide if it works for you or not.

after 110+ brews, I know what my expected loss to fermentor and loss to trub in my process is and for each recipe I can choose to adjust this or not based upon my past process data.  This does not make the software 'wrong' or its calculations 'incorrect' as some others would claim.  It just works the open process differently that what they would want or desire.

I've done process modeling for paper machines and pulping operations.  In processes such as these, there are many variables in the system and any type of control software must take some of these variables and fix them to fit common results in order to calculate the remaining figures and create control points so that the software can operate without spinning out of control.  The selection of these 'fixed variables' is a process option which is at the hands of the designer.  I've seen and worked with different control software that tackles the problem using different figures.  It did not make one 'right' or 'correct' as they all ended up doing what the software was intended to do -- control the process and predict the outcome.

So it comes down to you.  You can either work with the simulation design as it is published, continue to fight it, or find something else which fits your view of how the process should be modeled.
 
I am curious what people do to work around this then. Do they adjust the trub loss number as well as the brewhouse efficiency for recipes that are hop heavy?
 
There are a number of ways to tackle your process.

For my most common set-up, 10 liter BIAB, I set my equipment profile for 1 liter of trub loss.  This gives me essentially an 11 liter batch.  My trub loss ranges from 200 ml for lightly hopped, low gravity, malted barley recipes up to almost 1 liter for very heavily hopped and/or high adjunct recipes.  I transfer my 10 liters to the fermentor and then leave behind the 1 liter.  [OK, sometimes I cheat a little and pour out a couple of hundred cc' more into the fermentor if the trub is really low.]

This way I keep my mash efficiency, which is very predictable, constant.  My actual BHE result may vary a little bit but it is a planned excursion based upon my decision to allow a little more wort to ferment or not and does not impact the rest of the process calculations.

 
I haven't read all of this thread - I'm time poor at the moment and it is quite technical - but I'll get to why I think my question fits this thread at the end. It is about trub loss calculations and BHE, I promise  :)

One thing I have just noticed is that it seems to me that BS2 is including the loss to trub in the shrinkage calculation.  For example, in my latest brew, I have the following (measured variables) in BS2
Pre-boil vol 30.48L
Pre-boil gravity 1.051
Post boil volume 27.37L
Boil off 2.8L, evaporation rate 9.3% (note - I changed the est pre-boil vol to 30.17 to get the same post boil volume, in reality it was a boil off of 3.12L and 10.23%, but this doesn't affect my question, as the post boil volume is the same)
Shrinkage 2.47L, 9.01%
Trub loss 0.9L
Final volume (meas batch size) 24L

With my real numbers, I have taken the loss to trub from the post boil volume, then subtracted the shrinkage.  So this is 27.37 (post boil) - 0.9 (trub) - 2.46 (shrinkage value) leaving 24 L.  This gives me a shrinkage value of 9.31%, not 9.01%.

From this, it seems to me that the trub loss is included in the shrinkage (ie, everything at the end of boil undergoes shrinkage), then it is taken away.  Is this how it is supposed to be? 

Thinking about it, it probably works with an immersion chiller, but I am using a counter flow chiller, which means that the trub losses remain in the kettle and never undergo shrinkage (ok, maybe a few degrees as the whole thing cools down). 

As this influences the set variable (BHE, which I am actually coping with fine and am happy to continue to use), maybe there needs to be some consideration of cooling method in the equipment setup
 
bougie1st said:
One thing I have just noticed is that it seems to me that BS2 is including the loss to trub in the shrinkage calculation.  For example, in my latest brew, I have the following (measured variables) in BS2


With my real numbers, I have taken the loss to trub from the post boil volume, then subtracted the shrinkage.  So this is 27.37 (post boil) - 0.9 (trub) - 2.46 (shrinkage value) leaving 24 L.  This gives me a shrinkage value of 9.31%, not 9.01%.

From this, it seems to me that the trub loss is included in the shrinkage (ie, everything at the end of boil undergoes shrinkage), then it is taken away.  Is this how it is supposed to be? 

Thinking about it, it probably works with an immersion chiller, but I am using a counter flow chiller, which means that the trub losses remain in the kettle and never undergo shrinkage (ok, maybe a few degrees as the whole thing cools down). 

As this influences the set variable (BHE, which I am actually coping with fine and am happy to continue to use), maybe there needs to be some consideration of cooling method in the equipment setup

Quite possibly it can be set that way.  The best thing to do is to write to Brad and request that option be made available in future updates or versions.

 
 
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