Equipment Profile volumes

I have a question about the little check box for yeast starter.
If you include the yeast starter in the bottling volume you have diluted your wort by that amount, but it does not seem to be taken into account in any of the other numbers. Therefore the bitterness will be less and the O.G. will be less than calculated by Beersmith. If you are making a big beer with a big starter this would amount to quite a large error. Am I correct or have I mis-understood something?

Also I would like to make a mash profile where I have fixed volumes no matter the recipe. I want to mash with 4 gallons and sparge with 4 gallons and let the batch size float. I intend to brew recipes within 1.050 and 1.070 and let the mash thickness vary and final volume vary. But I do not see a way to do this as I cannot edit sparge volume.

Most likely I am not understanding the software - I am still fairly new to it. Any help would be appreciated.

you can add a Mash profileof your own .Go to Profiles, click on mash and click on add Mash. A window will open up. you can fill in all the information you need there. Put your own name or the name of the profile there. then click on add step. Add the name of the step and you can add as many steps as you want. This will allow you to change temperature, times, amounts added, and so on. Now only thing i couldn't figure out but I did figure it out when playing with it but don't remember how, was how to change the amount added and temperatures. I had to actually change them by changing to either infusion, decoction or temperature. Hope this helps you out. Happy Home Brewers Day.

TAHammerton said:

If you include the yeast starter in the bottling volume you have diluted your wort by that amount, but it does not seem to be taken into account in any of the other numbers. Therefore the bitterness will be less and the O.G. will be less than calculated by Beersmith. If you are making a big beer with a big starter this would amount to quite a large error. Am I correct or have I mis-understood something?

Click to expand...

A proper starter is going to contain mostly yeast. The slurry may be as little as 4% liquid but often closer to 10-15%. Even a thin starter should still be 50% yeast. So, a 2 liter starter isn't going to add more than 1 liter of wort. Where does the rest go? Into the yeast cells and gas produced.

Above a 2 liter starter and I think it's wise to be using at least an approximation of the recipe it's going into, if you're planning on pitching all of the volume. But, my opinion is that's not necessary. I think crashing a starter 24-48 hrs before use and pouring off the thinnest portion is wise. Even a lager starting at 1.075 only needs 10 ounces of fresh slurry.

Also I would like to make a mash profile where I have fixed volumes no matter the recipe. I want to mash with 4 gallons and sparge with 4 gallons and let the batch size float. I intend to brew recipes within 1.050 and 1.070 and let the mash thickness vary and final volume vary. But I do not see a way to do this as I cannot edit sparge volume.

Click to expand...

Something close will be a ratio of 1.028:1 for 12 lbs for the mash profile, then in the equipment profile add 0.7 gallons of kettle top up water. BeerSmith will still want to adjust the volume based on the ratio. You'll still have to adjust each recipe to 4 gallons of strike water and maybe the top up water, too.

Thanks Brewfun, very helpful as usual. I have been making 1l starters 24 hours prior acording to method described on White labs website. Perhaps time to change procedure to 2l crashed with excess liquid poured off.

brewfun said:

Something close will be a ratio of 1.028:1 for 12 lbs for the mash profile...

Click to expand...

Sorry, typo. That should be 1.28:1

I have been making 1l starters 24 hours prior according to method described on White labs website. Perhaps time to change procedure to 2l crashed with excess liquid poured off.

Click to expand...

TA, You nailed it at 2L if your brewing a 1.048 5.3 gallon ale batch using a inoculation rate of 1 tube or pack with 100% viability.  But only changing your starter size doesn't guarantee optimal results.  I am only now realizing what a great tool Mr Malty yeast calculator is.  The yeast book does a great job of explaining the guts of what goes into this calculator, and its an even better read the second time around.  Mr Malty just does it all for you.

I forgot to thank Steve for his usful input. Sorry Steve.
Regarding starters, I was aware I was under pitching, but I was getting good quick vigorous fermentation so I let it slide. Trying to up my game a bit so tell me more about mr malty please.

You can find it here.  http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html 
Its really user friendly.  Just hover your mouse over each user input box and a popup tells you what you need to enter.