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Help with new equipment profile

D0nNi3dArK0

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Hi All,

I just built a new electric brewery (Kal clone) and am having trouble dialing in my profile which might be leading to me really missing my numbers. The question I have is this: I use 3, twenty gallon stainless kettles for HLT, Mash tun, and BK. I am only brewing 5 gallon batches until I can get used to the system and start ramping everything up. Should I be listing my mash tun (at this time)as a 5 gallon vessel instead of 20? I've searched forums for it but haven't found anything. Thanks in advance for your assistance!

DD
 
No, the capacity of the vessel is only relevant to the size of the mash when looking at maximum capacities.

To dial your system in, you need to make sure you have good measurements of your volumes and gravity readings at every step.  Start by doing a 'dry run' and measure your dead spaces (that volume in your mash tun and boil kettle that you cannot drain out when you brew) and your boil off rate (volume at start of boil and volume at end of boil after an hour of boiling). 

Once you have these set to your measured values in your equipment profile, do a brew where you take careful measurements.  Now follow the volumes through the process and see where your numbers differ from the estimates from BeerSmith.  Make a copy of the recipe, and set your brewhouse efficiency to where BeerSmith calculated your BHE to be for that brew.  Adjust the boil off rate if different from your pre-measured value. 

Using the figures from your measurements you can make changes in your equipment profile to have the new recipe match the results from the actual brew.  Once you have it close in terms of BHE, volumes, and gravity estimates, save the equipment profile and use that for your next brew.  Continue to correct the equipment profile for a few batches until you are comfortable that you are achieving the numbers that are being predicted.

 
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