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Author Topic: beersmith gravity issue  (Read 879 times)

Offline berserkbrewing

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beersmith gravity issue
« on: February 13, 2022, 06:21:44 pm »
I've recently started brewing again. 1 gallon batches at the moment. I installed beer smith to play with since it's been years since I've used it. The OG is way off compared to my manual calculations. I went ahead with what beer smith said. came out with a 1.07 instead of the 1.05 beer smith said I would have. I can't for the life of me figure out why it's so far off. At this point I'm going to have a fairly big dunkel ryezen and a bit sweet at 14 IBU. Any ideas on why the gravity would be so far off?
1 gallon experimenter

Offline tommymorris

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Re: beersmith gravity issue
« Reply #1 on: February 13, 2022, 07:16:43 pm »
I've recently started brewing again. 1 gallon batches at the moment. I installed beer smith to play with since it's been years since I've used it. The OG is way off compared to my manual calculations. I went ahead with what beer smith said. came out with a 1.07 instead of the 1.05 beer smith said I would have. I can't for the life of me figure out why it's so far off. At this point I'm going to have a fairly big dunkel ryezen and a bit sweet at 14 IBU. Any ideas on why the gravity would be so far off?
Did you finish with the volume BeerSmith predicted? With such a small batch small volume changes can lead to big gravity changes.

Offline Bob357

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Re: beersmith gravity issue
« Reply #2 on: February 13, 2022, 07:50:44 pm »
Did you set up an equipment profile? If not, you really need to. Also, as tommymorris says, with a small batch it doesn't take much volume difference to change the gravity a lot. So, unless you measured the post boil volume and it was as planned, that may well have caused, or contributed to the problem.
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Offline berserkbrewing

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Re: beersmith gravity issue
« Reply #3 on: February 13, 2022, 08:23:46 pm »
I've gone through everything that I could think of. I knew my gravity was going to be way off. I just wanted to prove beer smith wrong lol. I extract brew in a two gallon pot on the stove top in my kitchen. equipment profile 1.28 gallon boil with .5 gallon boil off and .5 gallon top off for a 1.25 gallon batch with .25 gallon loss to fermenter. I know 1.5 pounds of dme will get me at about 1.053 og. beer smith wanted 2 pounds 3 ounces of dme to get me to 1.53. I just went with it and had to put another quart of water in to get it down to 1.07. should be an interesting beer. but not as interesting as to why beer smith is so far off for me. never had the issue back in the day. then again I was working with 5 gallon batches and drinking more. maybe it wasn't as accurate as I thought back then lol.
1 gallon experimenter

Offline Bob357

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Re: beersmith gravity issue
« Reply #4 on: February 13, 2022, 11:09:34 pm »

You say that you know 1.5 lbs. of extract will give you an OG of ~1.053. This is correct if you're using LME and your batch size is 1 gallon. Your actual batch size is, as you stated, 1.25 gallons, so your OG with 1.5 lbs. of LME should only be about 1.042, provided you accurately measured the volume into the fermenter and left nothing in the boil kettle. Anything you left in the kettle would need to be added to the batch volume in order to properly predict your OG. Remember, any volume you leave behind contains extract, not just water.

If you set up an equipment profile that accurately reflects your losses and additions and you accurately measure the volume into the fermenter, I'm quite sure you'll fine BeerSmith will give you a very accurate OG estimate.
Beer is my bucket list,

Bob357
Fallon, NV

Offline Kevin

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Re: beersmith gravity issue
« Reply #5 on: February 14, 2022, 07:25:26 am »
Beersmith out of the box is not a magic wand that you wave to get what you want. You must create an accurate equipment profile or your results will never match the estimates. You can create this profile from scratch or you can modify a profile that comes with the software. I have attached links to two tutorials that will walk you through the process. I've used both with good results.

Two things about the profiles that come with Beersmith. 1) They have been created and submitted by Beersmith users. 2) Brad Smith even recommends you only use these as a starting point in making your own profile. Why? Because everyone's process is different. Those users who submitted the profiles are trusted users who know what they are doing BUT their process, even using the same equipment, is different than yours and mine.

Beersmith can be extremely accurate if you take the time to work on the profiles. I'm in the process of fine tuning a new one myself for a new Anvil Foundry 10.5. I am three brews into it and still making small tweaks. I expect the next batch to be spot on. The point being however is that it takes effort on your part to make it work. Instead of attempting to "prove beer smith wrong" you should be taking the steps necessary to make it work for you.

This is the first tutorial I used and it still works well...
https://youtu.be/QmW7pwQP5mQ

This one came later and I like it better for including the volume calculator...
https://youtu.be/HwEbjOt8OR8
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Offline Richard

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Re: beersmith gravity issue
« Reply #6 on: February 14, 2022, 09:22:07 am »
You should post this on the BeerSmith forum (http://beersmith.com/forum/index.php ), with your .bsmx file attached. You will get good analysis and advice there.
Original Gravity - that would be Newton's

Offline Bob357

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Re: beersmith gravity issue
« Reply #7 on: February 14, 2022, 09:35:38 am »
Good advice Richard.

In this case, he got advice from 2 long-time BeerSmith users.
Beer is my bucket list,

Bob357
Fallon, NV

Offline berserkbrewing

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Re: beersmith gravity issue
« Reply #8 on: February 14, 2022, 05:00:23 pm »
Thank you all for the generosity in your replies. I greatly appreciate everyone's input. I'll continue to work on my hardware profile. I must be missing something somewhere as it's a ridiculously simple setup. I'll update everyone on my findings. Looks to be a good group here. I look forward to future discussions.
1 gallon experimenter

Offline berserkbrewing

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Re: beersmith gravity issue
« Reply #9 on: February 14, 2022, 05:19:35 pm »
Now with a 4th look and edit of my equipment profile. I have solved the problem. Put loss to trub/chiller to zero. I filter through a grain bag into my fermenter so loss is minimal.
1 gallon experimenter