Working with recipes assuming "average system extract efficiency of 80 percent"

Hey all,

I am new to BeerSmith (just got the trial to learn it), I also found a great book with many recipes.

I am trying to build the recipes with BeerSmith so I may modify it but the recipes aren't working out for me like they should.
The book states:

All hop and malt quantities for making a brew with the listed specifications are calculated for brew systems with a nominal, average system extract efficiency of 80 percent [...] Extract efficiency is essentially the amount of wort you get from a given amount of dry grist.

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All recipes are All Grain

When I put the recipe in BeerSmith I end up with OG * "Tot efficiency" of the recipe - in other words, if I set up my tot efficiency to 80%, and the recipe claims I should end up with 1.060 OG, BeerSmith will show 1.048 OG. Raising Tot efficiency to 100% will yield an accurate result.

Assuming that my system has an 80% tot efficiency, shouldn't the quantities of grains get me the desired OG?
Is there a setting I am missing?
Pleas advice!

For me this is one of the main benefits of the software.  Many recipes, including those in books, yield results different than what they publish.  In this case I'd keep the efficiency where my equipment falls in reality and bump up grains until the recipe's OG is hit.

First thing to check is what your equipment profile has for trub losses before the fermentor.  Set this to zero if not there already.  I don't know what book you are taking the recipes from, so I cannot comment on how the author's designed for 80% efficiency.  Double check the volume of the recipes as listed in the book. 

I am making the assumption that you are trying to input these recipes as they appear in the book and then using the 'scale recipe' feature to have it scale to your equipment profile.

Thank you for your replies,

Off Topic: I am truly impressed by BeerSmith, it's a great professional tool and still very easy to use. I think I must buy it and play with it more.

On Topic:
The book is: The Ultimate Almanac of World Beer Recipes by Horst Dornbusch
While the book offers an comprehensive and practical information and calculations for the both the hobby and professional brewer, this book seems to have been sponsored by Weyermann malts & SCHULZ Brew Systems as the author seems to base all recipes on their products.

The recipe is scaled in the book for many sizes, Allow me to share the relevant part of the recipe (the issue is will all the recipes):

Abbey/Tra ppist Dubbel
OG 1.060; BU 20; Color 11.8 SRM/30.1 EBC; ABV 6.7%

The grain bill calls for in %:
1. Pale Ale        65%
2. Abbey Malt  20%
3. Carabelge    7.5%
4. Munich I      7.5%
Needless to say all malts in the recipe are Weyermann's

For 1 Hl (kg) the grain bill (same order as above):
12.92 kg, 3.97 kg, 1.49 kg, 1.49 kg

For 5 Gal (lbs):
5.39 lb, 1.66 lb, 0.62 lb, 0.62 lb

For 19 Liter (kg):
2.45 kg, 0.76 kg, 0.28 kg, 0.28 kg

Could you please try this out and maybe advice me on what am I doing wrong?

Thank you

Just quickly playing around with the recipe you posted, I plugged it into my system by % of grains and scaled it to the OG listed. 

For a 10 liter batch at 80% efficiency with no trub loss going into the fermentor, I get 1.57 kgs of Pale ale malt, .483 kgs of Abbey malt, .181 kgs each of Carabelge and Munich malts.  No matter what yeast I use, I cannot get a finishing ABV above 6.4%, even with the mash set at 148F. 

Given this, I would suggest that you use the malt % to formulate the recipes on your own equipment profile and not worry about the absolute amounts given in the recipes.  I would guess that there is something missing or miscalculated from their scaling of the recipes. 

Just for the fun of it, and looking at what they are projecting for apparent attenuation, I threw in about 10% sugar into the recipe.  When I then scaled back to the published OG, the absolute malt figures started to come close to those you listed below for a 19 liter batch.  Attenuation was a bit higher as the final abv went up to 6.9%, but my guess is that this is what is missing from the book's recipe.

Thanks for the help.
Ironically the book calls for 1.75 kg/HL to get to 7.6% ABV !
Also, the author instructs a

Single infusion @ 152 °F {67 °C}. Rest 90 min. Recirculate. Sparge 90 min.

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I am beginning to think there are some miscalculations is the book with the grain bill, although the hops seem to give a very accurate result.