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Finally Brewed Today!

BeerSmith

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Grandmaster Brewer
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BeerSmith 1.3 is nearly final - just cleaning up a few loose ends.  After many weeks of programming and no brewing - I finally took a break today and brewed a batch.  

Felt good - everything went pretty smooth.  We had some nice fall weather (rain, lots of leaves flying around), but the temperature was only moderately cool.

Made an all grain version of Brian Smith's Magic #9 Wannabe.  Cut the hops a bit and reduced the color a bit.  If it comes out well, I will post it to the recipe exchange.

Cheers!
Brad
 
I'd say it was about time you shared a moment with your mash tun! Get away from it too long, and you'd forget why you were writing this program. Glad you had a good session... hope mine goes as well tomorrow.

colin
 
Actually I did make one gaffe while brewing.  Somehow I forgot to check the "Adjust temperature for equipment box" which means the temperatures were all too low.  Sure enough I undershot my strike temperature.

A little boiling water fixed the problem, but I'm thinking of adding a big flag or a "Preheat mash tun" step on the brewsheet if the flag is unchecked so I don't do that again!

Brad
 
Ha! Funny you mention this, as I was just about to send you a feature request regarding this very subject!

I never preheat my MLT, but instead, heat my strike water above the prescribed strike water temperature. Obviously, I do use the "Adjust temp for equipment" checkbox, but I usually go a little above that temp too, just to compensate for my own margin of error (usually I lose a couple of degrees at mash in due to stirring and the like).

I've gotten caught before when I forget to check the "Adjust Temp" box, so I have two little suggestions:

1) How about an option in the "Options" (duh) that lets you set the default state of that checkbox? For example, it would just say "Always adjust strike temp for equipment". When you design a recipe, the "Adjust Temp for Equipment" would be automatically checked. For someone who brews like I do--meaning never preheating the mash tun--this would be a headache-saving option.

2) In the mash profiles, would it be possible to engineer in a sort of static temperature loss that could be user-definable? Again, for a brewer like me who loses a few degrees on mash in, it would be excellent to have the program automatically factor in this heat loss. For me, it's usually in the neighborhood of 3-5dF, depending on how sticky the grain is, how big the grain bill is, and surrounding air temperature.

I do have to say, though, that once I figured out my system, the calculations for temperature steps that BeerSmith relies on are spot-on. Temperature control, in my mind, is the single most important thing when it comes to all-grain brewing. Of course, I learned this lesson the hard way when I first started AG brewing (Wow, that was almost a year ago!).

Thanks again Brad!

colin
 
Colin,
 I added a step in bold and underlined that says "WARNING: Preheat mash tun - no equipment adjustments made" to the brewsheet so it might be obvious that this option was not set.

 As for making it the default - try the following:

  - Create a new, empty recipe
  - Check the "Adjust temp for Equipment" box
  - Pick the "Save Recipe As Default" command from the "Actions" menu

This will check the box on all new recipes you create.   In fact, you can use this process to set any recipe setting default.  It will basically use the current recipe as a template for all future recipes.

Cheers!
Brad
 
Cool! That definitely works. I shoulda known you'd already have something figured for this one... a crafty one, he is  8)

On another note, my brew session went off relatively well. Ended a little low in volume in the carboy, because my bazooka left a little more than I would have liked in the keggle. Such are the trials and tribulations of pellet hops. At least it didn't clog like last week. I managed 84% efficiency over a calculated 75%... crushing my grain at .036 is DEFINITELY making a difference.

Happy brewing!
 
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