Water additions in reports

[MDE]

Having moved onto BeerSmith 3, I really like the improvements to the water section. However, I have a slight puzzle re the custom report tags. My practice is to add the "mash" water treatment salts to the mash ingredients and to add the sparge water treatment salts to the mash tun at the start of sparging.
In the reports:

• $WATER_PREP includes the mash water salts and
• $MASH_INGREDIENTS includes the sparge water salts

I can understand (1), for those that want to add the salts to the water, but (2) makes no sense to me.
Are there tags for custom reports which will list the sparge water salts separately and list the mash ingredients excluding the salts?
There is a sort-of work-round by specifying "Hold Sparge Salts Until Boil", but this does what it says and doesn't show them as a sparge addition.
Any thoughts?

[tdibratt]

I too am interested in the latest report variables available in BS3.  Where did you find them?

[BrewLizard]

Hi,

Sorry to bump an old thread, but this was the most relevant thread I could find from a Google search after buying Beersmith the other day, and I'm having the same problem.

Is there any way to fix this problem? It's really strange to have the mash salts added to the total water, then adding the sparge salts to the mash water. Makes no sense. Is this a bug, or are we doing something wrong?

I've taken a screenshot of what I mean. The 10.92 L is my total water volume (mash amount is 8 L. Salt amounts are correct, but in the wrong place.

Thanks

[Oginme]

The issue you are seeing is a function of the program being updated step-wise without an overhauling of the reports.  The reports, such as the brew day sheet you are viewing, are not indicative of exactly how you add the salts.  The program lists the total water needed, but then lists the salts needed for the mash water which in your case is only a portion of the total.  In this instance, you need to look down at the mash steps for the initial infusion water.  This is the volume which needs to be treated with the mash salt additions.  The remaining water used for the sparge is treated with the sparge salts. 

It does involve some interpretation given the way the information is presented.  The good news is that these reports are .html format and you can copy the brew day sheet and adjust it or create your own.  Give it a new name and upload it into BeerSmith using the 'options' > 'reports' section. 

[BrewLizard]

Thanks for your reply. Hmm, I have made my own report to tidy things up, but the $MASH_STEPS tables, etc. are automatically generated by something deeper than the report html code. I can't work out how to rebuild the tables themselves...

Have you cobbled together something that generates these tables?

[Oginme]

Unfortunately, no.  I have played around a little bit with custom reports in BS2, but have not remade the brew day sheet to reflect a proper order of addition and true step-by-step procedure.

[BrewLizard]

I've had another look at the tag list, and I don't think this is possible to fix at the report level.

$MASH_INGREDIENTS includes sparge salts for some reason, and there doesn't seem to be a way to generate just the mash ingredients. I don't think there are any other tags that can help.

This is kinda disappointing after paying for Beersmith. It's sorta like having a recipe put "ice the cake" before "preheat the oven". I guess the workaround for now is to just remove water salts entirely from my recipes and not have it on the brewsheets.

[GigaFemto]

For repeating tags that contain a list of items, such as $HOPS and $MASH_INGREDIENTS the custom report tags in BeerSmith do not allow you to access the individual items on the list. You get the whole list as a table, and that is it. If you export the recipe to an XML file and use software that can manipulate XML, then you can access the individual items. That doesn't help you to get them into a custom report for BeerSmith, though. I have been working on two approaches to making custom brewsheets, but neither one is truly satisfactory:
1) Use javascript inside the html custom report template for BeerSmith. This can do calculations like water volume expansion for temperature or converting gravity readings from hot to room temperature, correctly include the volume of extract and sugar in all-grain recipes, etc. It does not allow you to access the inner details of the tables, though.
2) Use Excel to import the XML from an exported recipe. Excel can do any calculations needed, can access the individual items in a table and can generate a custom report. Unfortunately, I just discovered that the exported XML file is missing some information. The Target pH, Adjusted pH and Measured pH are absent. The only pH entry is the default pH from the mash profile. I want the target pH to appear on the brewsheet next to where I enter the measured pH.

I haven't decided what to do since I am not happy with either of these and can't find a way to get the best of both without a lot of extra work. I am hoping that BeerSmith 4 comes out soon and solves my problem.

--GF

[BrewLizard]

Thanks for your reply, GF. It's definitely frustrating.

I've found a kind-of workaround in my case, which anyone is welcome to use if it helps them:
1. Add the following to the "Prepare for Brewing" list:

Code: [Select]

Total water: $TOTAL_WATER ($MASH_TOTAL_WATER L mash and $SPARGE_VOLUME sparge)(Note as well, the $MASH_TOTAL_WATER tag doesn't generate the unit, meaning my "L" is hardcoded now, and if you change a recipe to gallons, it will quote a misleading amount of water).
2. Replace $WATER_STEPS at the top with $MISCS to make a table of salts (the downside is that you end up with Whirlfloc tablets included here as well, but can't win 'em all, I guess).
3. Edit the code around "$MASH_INGREDIENTS" to reflect the following:

Code: [Select]

<h3>Mash or Steep Grains</h3>
$FERMENTABLES
$MASH_STEPS
<ul class="checklist">
<li>Sparge with $SPARGE_VOLUME of water at a temperature of $SPARGE_TEMP</li>
$FIRST_WORT_HOPS
etc
Edit: this is what it looks like.