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Boil Volume vs fermentables

Jims New Brew

Apprentice
Joined
Feb 21, 2011
Messages
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Location
Fenton, MO
I am a new brewer and a new user of Beersmith. I really like the program but have not got it all figured out yet. I have my first batch designed with the program in secondary and looking good but while designing my next recipe, a question came to mind that I can't answer. If someone can explain it to me I would appreciate it.

The first recipe was extract with steeped grains. My target batch volume was 2.75 gal. I set up my brew pot as a 5 gal pot with 10% loss for boil and 4% loss for cooling and the program told me I needed 3.18 gal boil volume and specified the amount of extract needed to reach my target OG. So far all is well and I understand. This is what I used and after the boil, cooling and some loss due to trub in the bottom of the kettle, I ended up adding about 1 1/2 pints of makeup water to the fermenter to reach my target of 2.75 gal. That was great to be that close.

Now the question. I noticed the ability to modify my equipment profile by including a volume (say 1/4 gal) for loss due to trub and cooling so I thought I would use that in my next batch. When I included the 1/4 gal loss, the boil volume went up as expected buy 1/4 gal to 3.46 gal but I don't understand why the extract and grain (fermentables) stayed the same. I understand that if I were to add water that is going to boil off the grain bill should stay the same but in this case (if I understand the program correctly) this is a volume of 1/4 gallon of wort (some of my sugars) that is going to be left in the kettle so the total of fermentable sugars transferred to my fermentor is less while I would still end up at or topping off to the same 2.75 gal target volume . Since I left some of my suggars behind in the fermenter isn't the gravity of the wort going into the fermenter going to be lower? What is the error of my logic?
Help my confused mind,
Thanks,
Jim
 
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