An idots guide to using beersmith - First all grain coming soon

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rusty Chch on November 4, 2008 at 11:06pm

For an IPA, I doubt you'd need the chocolate malt. It's more frequently used in much darker beers.

19l and 23l have become de facto standards driven by American measurements. 19l is the capacity of a cornelius keg and 23l is 5 gallons and the size of most american carboys.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ged on November 4, 2008 at 11:26pm

Thx mate..All milled together so I dont reckon I've got much chance of picking through it :) Happy to see what comes out the other end after mashing etc...

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Doublehoppy on November 5, 2008 at 12:56am

Milling them all together is an odd thing to do! Make sure that they are all well mixed in so that you have a consistent grain bill. If nothing else then you will be able to adjust future recipes from a certain base.

To change the default settings go to Tools (on the top menu bar), Options, Brewing.

For the hops and IBUs, it is a question of changing both the quantity and the time of the additions. You will only know by experience what level of bitterness suits your taste. For example, for an ESB I usually target 36 IBUs. I then muck around with the addition quantities and time (and hop varieties) until I hit it. Remember that you need a decent first addition (75 or 60 min), and this will add the majority of the bitterness. but most of the flavour and aroma will be boiled off, hence the late additions to restore those properties, but you will see from Beersmith that they add only relatively little bitterness. You can really go to town with large hop additions at say 10, 5 or 0 minutes if you want more hop character. With me no two hopping schedules are the same - I just can't resist tweaking the variables.

Good luck with your first AG

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Greig McGill on November 5, 2008 at 7:52am

Doublehoppy has answered most of your questions, but the scaling and brewsheet ones are pretty simple. It will auto scale for you. Just type in your target volume, it will do the rest. On the toolbar at the top there is a "preview brewsheet" button - this generates a PDF with step by step instructions for your brewday. You can then print this or save it for later.

Some random tips from having used Beer Smith for a while now. These work for me, ymmv.

* I find its water calculations to be almost useless. Well, they're not really, it's just that evaporation rates and things change based on many factors, so it's always the hardest thing for me in getting consistency.

* Your SRM estimates will probably be way off. Local malts are often very different in colour profile. Tweak the defaults for each malt based on your results if you care enough.

* Be careful with the temperatures for step mashing. Unless you know your gear REALLY well and are set up for it, these will almost always be a degree or two out. Often more. Just something to be aware of.

* Its no substitute for knowing your system inside out. Once you do though, it becomes a really useful tool.

It's a great tool, but like all tools, it's just there to help you. You're the brewer! :)

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by denimglen on November 5, 2008 at 3:50pm

"I find its water calculations to be almost useless. Well, they're not really, it's just that evaporation rates and things change based on many factors, so it's always the hardest thing for me in getting consistency."

Really? Personally I find them pretty good, usually hit my target mash temps -+ 1C and within 500mL +- of my final volume, now I've got my efficiency dialed in pretty well I'm usually within one pount of my gravity too. Although I'm brewing pretty similar gravity beers all the time, 1.040 - 1.060 so that may be why. I haven't done a step mash with beersmith yet but I'm not surprised, it seems that beersmith doesn't take into account temperature loss over time.

"Your SRM estimates will probably be way off. Local malts are often very different in colour profile. Tweak the defaults for each malt based on your results if you care enough."

I've found that too, definately worth getting colour ratings for all the malts you use and type them in, also worth remembering that the picture of the colour can be off quite a bit depending on your monitor settings.

And yeah, US Gallon is 3.8L.

Have a play with the options under the tools menu (this is where you can set the default unit for each type of measurement) and the settings for each ingredient. There's a duplicate button under the right click menu so you can duplicate an item and not lose the original values. I've added a '.' to th beginning of all my ingredients that I have available so they always appear at the top of the list when sorted alphabetically.

Also try and set up an equipment setting (this is where you can enter your default batch sizes etc), this helps a lot.

Expect to do 4 or so brews until you've got it all dialed in properly and know your efficiency.

Ctrl+e is a quick switch to english/US measurements and ctrl+m back to metric.

When you're in the recipe editing screen there's a button top right that says 'preview brewsheet', which will bring up a print-preview screen with the brewday sheet, you can print from there.

The website has some pretty good guides, including one for entering in your equipment. Their forum is really good to and the programmer frequents it and gives lots of help and advice.

Great program IMO.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Stu McKinlay on November 5, 2008 at 7:22pm

beersmith doesn't take into account temperature loss over time.

I just mashed for 5hrs and lost one whole degree... I love my morebeer system - until the plastic gives me cancer ;-)

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by denimglen on November 6, 2008 at 3:13pm

Haha lucky bastard.

When I was using a rectangle of styrofoam in the top of my tun I was loosing only like 0.5C over an hour, but then it got mouldy and I haven't replaced it yet. Sucks brewing without it.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mike Neilson on November 6, 2008 at 3:48pm

Yeah I can Vouch for this also, the morebeer set up is gold!!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by James P on November 5, 2008 at 8:32am

I thought a US liquid gallon was 3.785 litres thus, 5 x 3.785 = 18.925 litres. Most batches from the US are 5 gallons, however you can change the literage and modify you grain bill and hop additions to hit your style guides. (That's what I do.)

An imperial (micky) gallon is 4.54 litres thus more like the 23 litres.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Rusty Chch on November 5, 2008 at 8:02pm

Ged, for future reference, this is a brilliant link.

http://www.beersmith.com/Grains/Grains/GrainList.htm

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Sparky on November 5, 2008 at 8:45pm

Hi Ged

My suggestion is to pop back into Wigram, find out what day is brew day, tee up a day off work and spend it with them if they are happy to entertain the idea.

The Brewer will probably at times during the day be able to answer your questions and it will give you an idea of how brew day works.

I don't use Beersmith so I can't answer, however there are some good calcs out there for IBU's.

Best bet IMHO would be Paul's advice, coupled with your own ideas. Even better there maybe another 19l batch freak in your local area that would be happy for you to be around on brew day.

And of course there's a wealth of knowledge on these boards too.

Cheers

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tony on November 9, 2008 at 11:57am

Hi Ged
don't worry about asking questions, mate. That's how we learn. I use Beersmith and I find it a great tool. In fact, I'm glad you asked these questions, I've learnt something also.

You can modify or programme, just about all the setting and calcs manually in beersmith. Just double click on an entry and it will bring up the field for that entry. You can then put in whatever values you choose. The programme does have it's defaults and you need to adjust them to get the best results.

As for IBU's, I am reading Ray Daniels- Designing great beers. It gets pretty intense, but it does shed some light on a lot of these factors and how to calculate them. I usually go be 'feel', when adding my hops, as far as IBU's is concerned. Naturally you don't want to add 60g of green bullet at 13+ AA, unless you like eating lemons (I know this from experience).
But, beersmith gives you the IBU guide, which is pretty good. Yeasts, will bring out different hops/malt characters too.

Ah the joys of brewing- it is a miracle!

• ▶ Reply