Water addition flub or my missunderstanding

It is clear I need help with BS3 and the amount of water to use.  Today I brewed with the goal of a 5.5 gallon BIAB post boil amount but actually had 7.5 gallon (aprox).  Since the fermenter needed some headspace some of the wort went down the drain. 

I have reviewed my equipment profiles and they seem OK.  This same issue happened about two weeks ago with a braggot and the excess was almost 3 gallon.  I thought I had discovered some errors in my equipment profile but obviously I did not.

Anybody here care to look at the recipe and equipment profile and explain what I doing incorrectly?  It would be much appreciated.

You can export your recipe and we'll be happy to take a look at it. Please make sure that you fill in the measured (meas) fields with your actual measured results. This will allow swift analysis.

From the folder it resides in: Highlight the recipe. File > Export selected > [Name] > Save

Upload it here, using the attachments option.

My assumption is that the equipment profile(s) are included in the recipe.  If not let me know what else you want. 

Thank you for taking the time.

Yes. The recipe contains the profiles that you assign to them. BeerSmith stores recipes as flat files so that each is independent of changes to the master databases. This is to ensure that future changes to your equipment or process don't change your history of recipes. Otherwise, you'd never know what you did at the time. 

There seem to be two issue that are throwing your results off. There are a lot of moving parts for BeerSmith, so bear with me as we work this through. I may not have a full grasp on your process vs. your profiles.

In your equipment profile, you have 1.8 gallons as boiloff and the hourly rate box checked. Most homebrewers get about a gallon per hour of boiloff. Any more vigorous often causes boilovers. I suspect that you're getting 1.8 gallons of total boiloff (0.9 gallons per hour).

The next suspect is the trub. Are you leaving 0.6 gallons in the kettle after transferring to the fermenter? if not, this accounts for the rest of the volume needed for the 7 gallon yield that's recorded.

Finally, your actual brewhouse efficiency doesn't match the prediction. So, either your estimate is too high or there is more wort that is unaccounted for.

I also looked at the file and noticed that the boiloff amount listed is crazy high. If you boil off less than the amount BeerSmith expects, then you will end up with more volume than predicted. I also noticed that your grain absorption is higher than the BeerSmith default for BIAB. Again, if your actual absorption is less than what you told BeerSmith to expect you will end up with more wort than predicted. Your absorption value is appropriate for a "no-squeeze" or "minimal squeeze" BIAB approach. If that is what you are doing, fine, but if you are squeezing a lot then you might want to lower your grain absorption. The only way to tel what is right for you, given your choice of grains, the crush size, etc. is to make careful measurements of volume at every step of the process.

--GF

P.S. Boiloff measurements can be done with water. I have lowered my rate from 12% to 8% over the last year with good results. I have an electric kettle so it is easy to get a repeatable power level. With propane it can be harder to control accurately.

A bit of further input after looking at your recipe and profiles.  You did not fill out any of the values for readings of Post mash volume and gravity from the mash, and  pre-boil gravity.  These numbers are important to enter, as the software will use these to calculate your actual mash and brew house efficiency compared to the estimated values.  I came to the same conclusions regarding volume as Brewfun and GF and I would recommend working on getting your volume in line first and then on your next brew, you can dial in your actual efficiency vs your estimated efficiency in the equipment profile.

I want to thank everyone who provided input and help on this thread.

I learned a lot, especially regarding equipment profiles, boil-off and trub residual.  No doubt I flubbed the recipe and the results were predictable. 

And now having my nose stuck into it I sort of understand the notion of Mash Efficiency and Brewhouse Efficiency.  Most likely I will stumble around during my upcoming learning process. 

My special thanks to Brewfun for his response and patience in helping me understand the BS software.  Along the way, as we PM'd and emailed, we differed on how the software actually works versus how I think it should work relative to selected input values and computations.  My view is that absent documentation, less skilled users make assumptions on how the software works which obviously differs from how it is actually operating. Hopefully some of my notions will be forwarded to Mr. Smith since my experience will probably mirror that of other less skilled brewers such as myself.