Beer Smith 3 - Sparge volumes

[timppa]

Hello all

I'm new to the forum, relatively new to brewing and also relatively new to beer smith (3).
I have hard time to understand the sparge volume on mash profile. My brewing system consists of a 30L brew monk like system. Basically the same but just different brand.



I have set up the equipment profile, measured all lossess etc.

So the problem itself is that in the "mash" I do modify the mash profile to fit the recipe, check water to grain ration but the description filed always says add something like 24L of water and sparge volume is something. Total water volume is more that intended batch size, by far,
Or should I just ignore the desctiption field?? Where does the description filed text come from anyway?



I'm running beer smith version 3.0.9 on Ubuntu linux 18.04

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Thanks,
Timo

[Oginme]

The description text is the exact step instruction based upon the parameters of the mash profile.  You will want to customize the mash profile to fit the limits of your brewing system.  During the set up, the program uses the 'grain weight basis' to give you some idea on the temperatures and volumes of each step in the profile.  When the mash profile is employed in the recipe, the program will adjust the temperatures and volumes in the mash profile based upon the actual grain bill and the grain and mash tun temperature given in the mash tab of the recipe. 

You set up your mash profile to take into account the average sized grain bill you have or the most common weight of grain in your recipes, your choice.  Once in your recipe, click on the mash tab and under the mash steps, there is a column labeled "mash volume needed".  If your volume of grain plus water exceeds the volume limits of your brew system as defined in your equipment profile, the dot next to the 'mash tun volume' will turn red.  If this happens, then you will want to adjust the initial infusion volume to accommodate the size of the vessel you have.

[timppa]

Hi Oginme

Thank you for a quick reply.

I understand the steps that I need to do. I still wonder where to actually write the description so the recipe if printed shows the right information.
Now it shows the 24L which is in the description. And that is wrong. Inside the mash step I have 19L which gives nice water to grain ratio.

[timppa]

I think it was some sort of a hickup in the software. I had exactly 2 mash profiles with the same name in the system. That might have caused the issue.
Now the description updates when I set the water amount. Weird??

[Oginme]

If you are hitting the disk icon after updating the profile within the recipe, then the program will save another copy of that profile under the same name as the previous copy. 

You do not need to write the description, that is encoded in the software to respond to the mash steps as they are defined by the user. For instance, the first step will be an infusion step and will be constructed to read 'add xx L of water at yy.y C'.  For a temperature step, it would read 'Heat to YY.Y C over z minutes'.  And so forth depending upon how the step is defined when constructing the mash profile.

Now, in the profile you constructed, you had the step to add 19 l of water.  What was your grain basis?  What is the grain bill for the recipe?  The program will convert that volume of water into a l/kg ratio of water to grain.  It will then apply that ratio to the recipe when you build the recipe to give you the corrected water infusion volume for that step.

One note:  If you make a change to the profile outside of the recipe, it will not affect the recipe until you update the profile in the recipe to the new version.   Each recipe thus becomes an archive of the relevant information which will not be changed by any future changes to the profiles.

If this does not further help to explain the mash steps and how they work and why the volume inside the recipe may be different from your constructed profile, export the recipe and the profile as .bsmx files and post them here so I can help make it clearer.

[timppa]

Hi Oginme

Thanks for the clear explanation. I can manage from here on my own. I will open a new thread on a new issue if needed.

Happy new year!