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Whose gravity do I strive for? Beersmith or Internet recipe?

bcrawfo2

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I'm new to Beersmith and on both recipes I've entered I get a higher original gravity than what the recipe I found on the Internet?
Example...I brewed an ESB this morning...the Internet recipe said my OG should be 1.060.  When I entered the grain bill into BeerSmith, it calculated my post boil gravity to be 1.074.  I hit it pretty close at 1.076.    I also hit my BeerSmith pre-boil estimated gravity of 1.057, I had 1.055.

Does this just mean that my efficiency was higher than the recipe creator?    Just in case....I added more water and got my OG down to 1.060.

As I write this note, I see that I can tell BeerSmith what I want my OG to be and then it will scale back the grains.    I'm guessing I keep playing the "top-off" game as I tune BeerSmith to my technique.  Then once I'm dialed in...I can use it to scale back the OG/ingredients so I hit the OG.

Thanks for any input.
 
If the actual results are matching closely to what BS is predicting then you've got BS dialed in perfectly.  Just adjust the recipe in BS (using the scale up/down tool) to match what you/internet recipe wants the OG to be.  In order for the internet recipe to be meaningful to you , you would have to know what efficiency they have built in.  That's why I like Jamil's recipes in Brewing Classic Styles because he provides all that information.  If the specific grain bill is giving me different results in BS and I know BS is going to be pretty close when I brew, it is easy to adjust the bill to match the OG that Jamil is looking for in the recipe.  I hope this helps?
 
Agreed.  Sounds like you've told BS what your system is like.  The recipe owner's system may be different in significant ways. 

When I was using Jamil's BCS recipes, I built his equipment profile in BS, entered his recipe until it matched perfectly, and then swapped to my equipment and adjusted as necessary to restore the major outputs:  SRM, OG, IBU, and BU:GU, etc. 
 
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