Equal Runoff Batch Sparge

I've been using Beersmith since October and I really like the program..  However, I'm having difficulty setting up my batch sparge water volumes.  I typically do a single infusion batch sparge and I would like to achieve equal runoffs. When calculating the water needed, my strike water is substanially less than my sparge water volume.  Case in point, this past weekend I brewed an Enlish Summer Ale with about 7.5 lbs of grain.  My strike water was calculated to use something like 10 qts or 2.5 gallons and my sparge water volumes was something like 6.5 gallons to get 7.75 gallons pre-boil volume.  How can I configure my sparge profile so that I can produce equal runoffs?  I've selected the equal runoff box but my water volumes do no change.  Thanks for any help.  I've been making some really good beer, just want to make them even better.

Try checking the "drain mash tun before starting to batch sparge".  If you don't, it will include the mash water as part of the first batch.

Cheers!
Brad

Thanks,
  I'll check that setting, but if my memory is correct I think its already selected. 

I had to make sure that my tun total volume was correct for my tun.  Then I set it to use equal size batch sparge, and also only use about 70% of tun volume.  This has increased the number of sparges, but give a better result in my opinion.

As far as I can tell Beersmith isn't concerned about equal runoffs.  It wants to meet your ratio no matter what and that would seem to lead to unequal runnings.  It would be nice if it would adjust your grist/water ratio to do this for you, but the only way I can get it done is to fiddle with the ratio myself and estimate what my initial runnings will be since it's not obvious from the main screen what absorption and deadspace will take up.  If I'm wrong about this someone please se t me straight.

I have tried to use the  old version of Beersmith to do the batch sparge with equal runnings like Denny Conn suggests on his excellent webpage, but haven't been able to get it to work. It appears no matter how great the 1.4 is it still isn't set up to work with this type of mash profile. I set my mash-in ratio and then round off to an easy to measure amount,and then I do a mash-out infusion to get the total run-off from the mash to 1/2 of my boil volume subtracting the 0.13 gallons/lb absorbed by my grain. Then I do one (1) batch sparge @ 170 df in the amount of 1/2 of final boil volume. There should not be a noticable amount of sparge water that gets absorbed during the sparge. I have yet to get the software to do the calculating for me, so I still you Notepad and acalculator.

I have been brewing with Beersmith like this for the better part of 7 months now, and am getting about 80% brewhouse efficiency with it. I hope this can help you out a little bit.

I do the same thing.  For moderate gravity beers, it works well.  For really big or fairly small beers it doesn't work so well because the sparge volume starts to get quite a bit smaller or bigger than half the total volume, so this approach can't always be followed.

I did up a little spreadsheet in Excel to do the calculations, if anyone wants it (attached).

I wish this was part of this new release.  I guess I will continue to manually adjust the water volumes.

Just wanted to chime in with a me too. It would be much more useful for the equal batch size option to figure out equal run offs rather than equal addtions. Knowing equal addtions really doesn't do me much good.

Agreed.  I'd like to see this too.  I don't like having to use a second tool to do something so basic.