Water absorbed by grain in mash tun

Brad, is there a way to make absorption of water by the grain in the mash tun a user-settable variable? I find that the figure used by Beersmith (0.12gal/lb?) is too low. Mine is routinely .15 to .16 gallons per pound. It would be very nice to be able to set the variable myself so my brewsheets come out right.

Thanks!
Chad

Chad,
  You can set the volume for 1kg of grain in the advanced tab, options dialog (tools dialog).

  I'm not sure if this is what you wanted.  If its not, I can look at adding additional options in the future.

VR
Brad

Hi Brad, thanks for the quick response. The setting you are referring to allows the user to change the amount of volume/space occupied by a Kg of grain in the tun. What I'm looking for is a way to set the amount of water absorbed by the grain during the mash. I lose .15 gallons per pound or slightly more, meaning that when I mash 10lbs of grain, I lose 1.5 gallons of water to absorption by the grain. If I mash in with 16qts of water (4 gallons), I'm going to get right at 10qts (2.5 gallons) out on the first run. Beersmith takes this loss into account but uses a percentage that is too low, in my opinion.

Beersmith allows the user to set lauter tun deadspace, losses to trub, etc. All of those things affect the calculation that shows up as "Prepare X gallons of water for brewing," the "boil volume" calculation, and the batch sparge volumes. Somewhere in that calculation is a fixed variable that takes into account the amount of water lost to absorption by the grain and adds it into the amount needed on brew day. I know that I'm going to lose more than Beersmith thinks I am, so I have to scribble adjustments on my brewsheets. If that variable could be set by the user (or even just adjusted upward a little), I think it would be easier to create brewsheets that were better reflections of reality.

Thanks again,
Chad

Thanks Chad,
  I'll take a look at adding a separate adjustment for this in a future version.  Thanks again for the feedback - sorry I don't have it in the program already.

Brad