Setting up BeerSmith for my 25 BBL brewery

[BlackthornJ]

Currently awaiting the delivery of our 25 BBL brewhouse and was going to attempt to use BeerSmith in addition to manually calculating recipes.  Each the Mash Tun and the Boil are 25 BBL working capacity but around 30 BBL actual capacities.  The system doesn't have a lauter tun but does have a Wort Grant.

Loosely trying to figure out the Equipment settings based on my calculations as well as the manufacturers specifications.  Let me know if anything seems grossly incorrect

http://i.imgur.com/cYozkKj.png

[brewfun]

First, Congrats on the purchase!

Looking at this profile, I have a couple of questions...

How many vessels is the system?

How is the system fired? Straight steam? Direct? Colandria? Pressurized?

Whats the HP rating of the boiler?

Your profile makes me think pressurized colandria, if you're going to get 10% boiloff. Most systems I've worked on are in the 5% to 7% range.

I'm not sure about the 96% brewhouse yield. Did you mean that number to be the mash efficiency?

[BlackthornJ]

How many vessels is the system?

Mash Tun/Lauter Tun Combo (3mm thickness) + Kettle with a built in Whirlpool (Inner tank thickness:3mm, Jacket thickness:1.5mm)

How is the system fired? Straight steam? Direct? Colandria? Pressurized?

Low Pressure Steam

Whats the HP rating of the boiler?

Your profile makes me think pressurized colandria, if you're going to get 10% boiloff. Most systems I've worked on are in the 5% to 7% range.

70 HP 1000kg/h.   The 10% seems ridiculous to me as well, its just the numbers given to me from the Brewhouse supplier which I'll have to test for myself once the system is actually delivered

I'm not sure about the 96% brewhouse yield. Did you mean that number to be the mash efficiency?

Definitely meant mash efficiency

[brewfun]

That's a nicely sized boiler! You should get a lot of productivity out of that beast!

Let's assume that you want a 25 bbl yield to the fermenter, after chilling. Your cooling loss could be as much as 1 bbl, and at the evaporation rate supplied, you'll lose somewhere around 3 bbl for 60 minutes. That means measuring 29 bbl preboil, above the racking port at 200 deg F. [For purposes of this discussion, I'm going to ignore what's below the racking port]

That sounds like a pretty full kettle. I have a 15 bbl system, which fills to 18 to 19 bbl, and has a capacity of 23 bbl. Even with 4 bbl of headspace, it doesn't take long for me to get a lot of foam, if I open up too much steam. Foam Control is my friend! 

The main number is that it takes 1150 btus to get 1 lb of steam. A gallon of water is 8.33 lbs and contains 180 btus when it's at 212 deg F. The difference to convert all of that mass into steam is 970 btu/lb. Sum that up and you need around 750K btu, which is well within the range of your boiler.

If the kettle has a very wide geometry, you'll get close to this, but probably not above 8% boiloff. If it's pretty tall, you'll be closer to the 5%. That dials your preboil back by a barrel, maybe two. This sounds more reasonable and it places the cooling loss a lot closer to what you got from BS.

Next post, I'll look at brewhouse yield.

[BlackthornJ]

That's a nicely sized boiler! You should get a lot of productivity out of that beast!

Let's assume that you want a 25 bbl yield to the fermenter, after chilling. Your cooling loss could be as much as 1 bbl, and at the evaporation rate supplied, you'll lose somewhere around 3 bbl for 60 minutes. That means measuring 29 bbl preboil, above the racking port at 200 deg F. [For purposes of this discussion, I'm going to ignore what's below the racking port]

That sounds like a pretty full kettle. I have a 15 bbl system, which fills to 18 to 19 bbl, and has a capacity of 23 bbl. Even with 4 bbl of headspace, it doesn't take long for me to get a lot of foam, if I open up too much steam. Foam Control is my friend! 

The main number is that it takes 1150 btus to get 1 lb of steam. A gallon of water is 8.33 lbs and contains 180 btus when it's at 212 deg F. The difference to convert all of that mass into steam is 970 btu/lb. Sum that up and you need around 750K btu, which is well within the range of your boiler.

If the kettle has a very wide geometry, you'll get close to this, but probably not above 8% boiloff. If it's pretty tall, you'll be closer to the 5%. That dials your preboil back by a barrel, maybe two. This sounds more reasonable and it places the cooling loss a lot closer to what you got from BS.

Next post, I'll look at brewhouse yield.

I easily just learned more from you on the Engineering end of Brewhouses than both University math classes and Brewing School combined.  I knew 10% had to be way off, it has me questioning the rest of the numbers they've been throwing at me, scaling up these recipes is really going to be a fun amount of guess and check.

[brewfun]

Since you're working up some recipes, here is a small list of "alternative meanings" that I've adapted for my brewery procedures.

Yeast: I inventory yeast "packages" as generations expected and a full pitch. I divide the purchase cost across the expected generations to get a batch cost average. [**Note that this is different than P&L costing where 100% of any purchase goes against the revenue of that same month]

"Aroma" aka Steeped Hops, are my whirlpool additions. No IBUs get added, which is a limitation. The steep time defines how long the whirlpool is supposed to last. I have up to 45 minute WP times.

Carbonation: I added a bright tank profile. But BS considers the volume to be a keg, so the pressure is low. I have set the profile to 75F in order to get a reading of 30 PSI, which is what my brights need. That temp doesn't show up on the report, but I've added a note for the correct temp.

Hop Extract: You might not be planning on using any. ...until you realize you can't get the last 5 bbl of your DIPA out of the kettle!    I use it for foundation bitterness and to lower the amount of hop trub. It leaves me with more room for flavor and aroma additions. I set the hop profile as 1 lb = 1 can,, so that it's easy to add into the shopping list and order. In this format, the AA% works out to 35% for 150gm and 70% for 300gm. I calculate that 150 gm should be 18 IBU in 25 bbl and 300gm is just about 36 IBU.

[BlackthornJ]

Since you're working up some recipes, here is a small list of "alternative meanings" that I've adapted for my brewery procedures.

Yeast: I inventory yeast "packages" as generations expected and a full pitch. I divide the purchase cost across the expected generations to get a batch cost average. [**Note that this is different than P&L costing where 100% of any purchase goes against the revenue of that same month]

"Aroma" aka Steeped Hops, are my whirlpool additions. No IBUs get added, which is a limitation. The steep time defines how long the whirlpool is supposed to last. I have up to 45 minute WP times.

Carbonation: I added a bright tank profile. But BS considers the volume to be a keg, so the pressure is low. I have set the profile to 75F in order to get a reading of 30 PSI, which is what my brights need. That temp doesn't show up on the report, but I've added a note for the correct temp.

Hop Extract: You might not be planning on using any. ...until you realize you can't get the last 5 bbl of your DIPA out of the kettle!    I use it for foundation bitterness and to lower the amount of hop trub. It leaves me with more room for flavor and aroma additions. I set the hop profile as 1 lb = 1 can,, so that it's easy to add into the shopping list and order. In this format, the AA% works out to 35% for 150gm and 70% for 300gm. I calculate that 150 gm should be 18 IBU in 25 bbl and 300gm is just about 36 IBU.

Doing mostly lower IBU ales, so we shouldn't need to touch hop extracts (hopefully).  I'll have to play around with the bright tank and hop whirlpool numbers as carbonation and hop profiles for English style ales are ridiculously important as they should be subtle. 

Pitching with dry yeast at least for the beginning until we can start brewing with a bit more regularity so the cost from bricks of yeast will be a manual cost addition for now. 

Reading through MBAAs practical handbook series atm so hopefully a lot of my FAQs can be taken care of there, anything I've got left over I'll definitely shoot you a pm.  Thanks again