BeerSmith help

There's a pot and cooler profile in beersmith that I modified for using the pots at the brewhouse.  If you use the profile with the 10 gallon igloo cooler, you don't need to modify that part at all; just adjust your pot size and boil off rate.  I generally lose a bit over 1 gallon an hour for the 10 gallon pots, and a bit over 1.5 gallons an hour with the 15 gallon pots.

Jim,

I get great results with beersmith, and consistently am within 5 or so percent of my numbers.  There's no question that it takes some tweaking for every single recipe; that's probably my biggest annoyance with brewsmith.  I found that I started hitting (or getting close to) my numbers when I began keeping closer track of my volumes.  Figure out (as precisely as you can) how much you're collecting and how much you're leaving behind.  Use the same equipment every time if you can.  I put .3 gallons as the MLT deadspace for Lucas's tun, and another .3 for chiller/trub losses to the counterflow.  I make sure that I've collected enough pre-boil volume before I start my boil, and I use about 1.2 gallons/hour boil off rate for your pot on a blichmann burner.  That's a vigorous boil, but you can actually boil off slightly more if you really get a crazy boil going.

I'm always happy to help walk you through, and I can email you the profile I use for lucas's tun and your pot if we're not going to be at the brewhouse at the same time in the near future.

-Adam

Adam, e-mailing me the profiles would be awesome. Thanks!

Eric, thanks for the link. I'm checking it out right now.

Jim,

You need to enter the estimated efficiency for your system.  That's how beersmith calculates the numbers it gives you.  If you routinely get 60% efficiency, and you enter 60 in the "Tot Efficiency" field in the recipe design screen, that will help you to hit your numbers more accurately.  Remember, the goal is consistency, not necessarily high efficiency (unless low efficency is an indicator of something wrong with your process). Who cares if you have to put an extra lb or two of base malt in your recipe to get the OG where you want it, as long as you know to do that?  With the equipment at the brewhouse, I can usually count on an efficiency of around 75% for beers up to around 1.060.  Above that and I estimate 70% efficency, unless it's a really big beer (> 1.090), in which case I estimate 65%.

Measured efficency is what Beersmith calculates based on you entering your measured OG and volume into the fermenter.  If you don't record those numbers and re-input them back into beersmith, your measured efficiency is going to be totally wrong.  I also try to record and enter pre-boil volume and pre-boil gravity, as that lets me know if I'm approximately where I should be prior to boiling.

-Adam

Right, but if your estimated efficiency is not at least close to what you get, you won't hit your numbers.  Garbage in-garbage out and all that.  Look back at all your recipes, and see what your measured efficiency is.  If it's relatively consistent, then you just say, well, that's roughly the efficiency that I get, and enter that as your "Brewhouse efficiency" in the profile.  Then you can adjust your grain amounts (generally just base malt) to get the numbers that the recipe calls for.

Scaling recipes for efficiency only modify base malt.

i.e. the recipe calls for 10lb of pale malt and 2 lb of c40 @ 70% eff in a 5 gallon batch. Your system gets 60% you should add 2lb more base malt and keep the crystal the same.

If you are scaling for volume scale everything. 

i.e. the recipe calls for 10lb of pale malt and 2 lb of c40 @ 70% eff in a 5 gallon batch. You need 6 gallons, you would add 2lb base grain and about 1/2lb of c40.

So, here we go again...

I'm using the profile Adam sent me. I plugged in a recipe for a Saison, I chose all the appropriate boxes, &c.
 Not getting the same SRM, IBUs (or OG), as the person who posted the recipe. Am I just expecting the wrong things (or too much) from BeerSmith? Do you guys plug in recipes and then tweak it to get the numbers the original brewer got?

I'm so baffled....

Thanks, Adam, et al. I realize I'm pretty fucking dense when it comes to this. For some reason it's taking a lot longer than most for this BS shit to sink in. I appreciate everyone's thoughtful - and patient! - responses. I'll wrap my head around BS one of these days....

And, to add insult to injury, when I click "File" and "Import Wizard" and click on the directory where Adam's recipe is, it tells me that there are no beersmith recipes in tha folder. Yet, when I click to that folder in Windows, lo an behold! There it is! The recipe is actually in that directory!

If you recommend them I may watch them. But, shit, I'm neither an old geezer nor a Luddite; it shouldn't be this damn difficult to navigate the program.