Equipment Specifications for 48qt cooler

Brad, or anyone else who has the correct specs,


What would be the full info I would need for the Equipment Specifications section of BeerSmith. Oh, and does this affect the brew sheet at all?

I'm using a 48qt rectangular cooler with a CPVC manifold. I want to make sure that the temperature numbers are correct for strike, mash out, etc as I've had problems in the past hitting my numbers.

Oh and Brad, is there any chance you could add a checkbox which could calculate the fact that some people "pre-heat" their mashtuns so the strike temperature can be hit easier?

Thanks,

SW

Lets see...
 A good starting point would be to weigh your cooler and enter that into an entirely new equipment profile.

 Here's a full article on how to build your own custom equipment profile:
  http://beersmith.com/equipment_setup.htm

 It is used in the brewsheet to calculate water needed, temperature adjustments for equipment and so on.

 Also, here are some great hints if you are missing your strike temperature.  Particularly for plastic mash tuns, the variation in materials can be significant:  
 http://www.beersmith.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=Tips;action=display;num=1085452981

 Another reason you might have trouble hitting your temperaure is that you are using a pretty large mash tun (possibly) for a relatively small amount of grain/water - IF you are only using 5 gallon batches in your 12 gallon mash tun.  Again you can compensate by adjusting the "Mash tun specific heat" number upwards a bit.

 Finally, if you pre-heat your mash tun - then all you need to do is turn off the checkbox that says "Adjust Temp for Equipment" in the Mash section of your recipe.  When checked it will try to compensate for your mash tun temperature.  If not checked, it will perform the water and grain temperature calculations only.

Cheers!
Brad