BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog » BeerSmith Software

BeerSmith 2 for Linux Open Beta Release

Brad Smith — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:17:02 +0000

I’m happy to announce the release of our first open beta version of BeerSmith 2 for Linux. This is the first time BeerSmith has been available as a native program on the Linux platform.

The Linux version is initially being released as an open beta for the community in preparation for formal release. The initial version has been compiled for the popular Ubuntu Linux as a 32 bit Intel 386 version, and packaged as a Debian distribution package. Early beta testers have had success with the program on other Debian linux platforms.

You can download the Debian package of BeerSmith 2 here on the main BeerSmith download page.

The Linux version is compatible with our PC and Mac versions of BeerSmith 2 and contains the same feature set. It may be registered by purchasing an activation key like the Mac and PC platforms if you decide to purchase a copy after running the trial.

Thanks to those who provided early beta testing. Please visit this discussion forum thread if you have comments or feedback on this version.

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BeerSmith 2 Update Posted (Build 40)

Brad Smith — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 19:20:40 +0000

This will be a short note to let you know I just released an update to BeerSmith 2. I’ve posted BeerSmith 2 Build 40 (2.0.40) to the main download page here.

This is a recommended update for all users of BeerSmith 2 – as it contains over 30 fixes and enhancements for items that people wanted fixed immediately after the initial release such as boil off rate, water/grain ratios, BIAB profiles, and adding the Save As button back in. The release notes are here.

Due to a bug in the version 38 and lower (including the initial release) this update will not show up when you click on the updates button – so you do need to go to the download page to grab the new version.

To install it, simply download it and install it to the same Program Files or application directory as your BeerSmith 2 install. Do not install it to your Documents directory, however, as that could overwrite your existing data.

Happy brewing!

Brad Smith

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BeerSmith 2 Home Brewing Software is Here!

Brad Smith — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 05:11:28 +0000

Our BeerSmith 2 home brewing software has been officially released! BeerSmith 2 is the next generation in beer brewing software, and is packed with new features including tabbed browsing, yeast calculators, a redesigned interface and lots more! It is also our first release available for the Macintosh platform.

I’ve included a sample of the new features below – and hope you will take a few minutes to download the trial copy and give it a test spin.

Download your Free 21 Day Trial of BeerSmith 2 here!

Also – I hope to see many of you at the National Homebrewer’s Convention in San Diego later this week (I’ll be wearing a BeerSmith 2 polo shirt), and promise we’ll return to our regular programming about beer brewing next week after I get back from the AHA conference. I’ll also do some twittering from the conference if you want to follow me @beersmith - Thank you again for all of your support!

BeerSmith 2 Home Brewing Software

Take the guesswork out of home brewing with BeerSmith 2! BeerSmith 2 has been completely redesigned from the ground up to include tabbed browsing, graphical recipe design and a host of new features. BeerSmith helps you design great beers, match popular beer styles from around the world, manage your recipes, generate step-by-step brewing instructions and perform dozens of brewing calculations with ease. BeerSmith sets the gold standard for brewing software. Now available for Macintosh (Intel/Leopard/10.5 and above), Windows 7, Vista and XP/SP3.

Features:

Take the guesswork out of home brewing using the gold standard for recipe design
The new BeerSmith 2 was redesigned from the ground up with a modern, graphical interface
Tabbed browsing lets you work with multiple tools and recipes at the same time
Build recipes by selecting ingredients from our preloaded database of hundreds of ingredients
Download new recipes and ingredients (add-ons) from within the program
Does dozens calculations for you – estimates color, gravity, bitterness, and more
Shows step-by-step instructions for any recipe
Inventory, shopping list, calendar and folders help you organize your brewing
Over a dozen stand alone brewing tools including our new yeast starter calculator
Supports metric, english and imperial units
Available for the first time on Macintosh (Intel platforms) as well as Windows 7, Vista and XP

Download your Free 21 Day Trial of BeerSmith 2 here!

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Countdown to BeerSmith 2 – 10 June Launch!

Brad Smith — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 22:23:52 +0000

Let the countdown begin! BeerSmith 2 will be available for download this Friday, 10 June 2011, starting at noon Eastern time (US) for both Windows and the Macintosh from our main site at BeerSmith.com.

That only leaves you a few days to take advantage of the BeerSmith preorder discounts (both for new and existing users).

BeerSmith 2 is the biggest product release since our original BeerSmith 1.0 way back in 2003 – a complete rewrite of the program for both Macintosh and PC, and we believe it will set the new standard for beer brewing software.

In preparation for the launch, I’ve redone the entire BeerSmith web site at BeerSmith.com, and I’ve added a wealth of resources for those who might still be on the fence regarding BeerSmith 2. I think brewers at all levels will be happy with the result.

I have a new Features page showing some of the key features in BeerSmith 2 as well as my previous post regarding features
I’ve added over a dozen video tutorials on BeerSmith 2, and will be publishing additional overviews shortly
The entire help system for BeerSmith 2 is now available online as well

Again, you can get a discount if you preorder your copy, but the preorder is open only until the official launch date.

Also, I would like to take one more opportunity to thank the (nearly 100) people who participated in beta testing!

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BeerSmith 2 Release Date, Pricing, and Preorder

Brad Smith — Thu, 19 May 2011 17:28:27 +0000

After my earlier post announcing BeerSmith 2, I received a lot of email asking when it would be available and how much it would cost. I’m pleased to announce both the BeerSmith 2 release date, pricing and also open up the preorder for those who wish to get a great discount on the next generation in brewing software.

BeerSmith 2 Release Date: 10 June 2011

I’m launching BeerSmith 2 in conjunction with the National Homebrewer’s Conference in San Diego June 16-18 2011. As I will be attending the conference, I’m currently working to release the software on 10 June. BeerSmith 2 will be available for both PC and Mac on the release date.

If you want to learn more about BeerSmith 2, you can read about it here. Also I will be posting some videos shortly on the main web site showing the program in action.

Regular Pricing

The regular price (both Mac and PC) for BeerSmith 2 will be $27.95 (US). This is a great value for the average homebrewer given all of the features we’ve packed into the new release, and is less than the cost of a bad batch of beer for most brewers. In addition I will be offering discounts (below) for those who choose to preorder as well as existing users wishing to upgrade.

Existing BeerSmith 1.4 Users

If you have bought BeerSmith 1 at any point in the last 8 years since its release, you can upgrade for$19.95 after launch. The full upgrade price ($19.95) is only going to be available until 31 August 2011. You need your registration key to upgrade.

Also if you purchased BeerSmith after 15 February 2011, you can get a substantial discount on the new version. See this page for further details on how to upgrade if your BeerSmith purchase was made after 15 Feb 2011. This program will be available until 31 July 2011.

Thank you again for all of your support – especially the (now approaching 100) beta testers who continue to help me improve the software!

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BeerSmith 2.0 – A First Look

Brad Smith — Tue, 03 May 2011 02:18:41 +0000

I’m happy to announce that BeerSmith 2.0 is well into its beta test phase, and the pre-order is now open. It took over three years and 55,000 lines of code to get to this point, but I wanted a solid foundation for the future of BeerSmith. I thought I would take a few minutes this week to share a few screen shots and some of the details of the new version, though I plan to publish a lot more in the coming weeks.

The first thing to know is that BeerSmith 2 is not an “update” to BeerSmith 1.4 – it is a complete redesign of the program from the ground up. That has allowed me to redesign the foundations for the program and also take a hard look at what features worked best and which ones people would most like to see in the new version.

Macintosh and PC Support

Rewriting the program also gave me a chance to go cross platform – for both PC and Mac. Over 60 people are testing the new program on both platforms, and the two versions are nearly identical on both systems. I intend to release the two versions simultaneously so Mac users will now have the same full featured BeerSmith program available on the PC.

PC Version

Macintosh Version

A New Look, Familiar Feel

The basic platform for BeerSmith 1.0 was started way back in 2002 – and though it has served thousands of brewers very well over the years, it was starting to show its age. BeerSmith 2.0 has a significantly updated look and feel – including a ribbon bar, liberal use of high resolution graphics and icons, and a lot of options to customize the platform.

At the same time, the new version maintains the features you are most familiar with including all of the separate tools, custom reports and detailed ingredient databases you have used over the years.

Tabbed and Windowed Browsing

One of the biggest features brewers wanted was a way to work on more than one recipe or tool at a time. After all, you can open a bunch of web pages in your web browser – why not your brewing software? So I added tabbed and windowed browsing to BeerSmith 2.0. You can open any recipe, tool or item in a tab or in a separate window and work on it the way you want. Want to work on three recipes at a time? No problem – they will open in three different tabs. Have multiple monitors? You can open as many windows as you like and spread them across all your screens.

Tabbed Browsing Details

Improved Recipe Design

The improved recipe design tool gives you a graphical look at your recipe – from the large glass showing the color of your beer to the graphical style guide comparison. Since a lot of people asked for different fields to be added to the recipe design display, I decided to make them all happy – the section in the lower right lets you pick from dozens fields detailing your recipe.

Graphical Recipe Design

Many existing users of BeerSmith are familiar with the Equipment and Mash profiles that make scaling to match your equipment or selecting a new mash profile as easy as choosing from a list. In BeerSmith 2, I’ve extended that concept to include carbonation and fermentation – you can pick from a preloaded set of carbonation and fermentation/aging profiles and apply them to a recipe.

Style Guide and "Pick your own" Fields

Formulate Recipes by Percent

Perhaps one of the most frequently asked-for features was the ability to formulate recipes by grain percentage. Now you can do exactly that – add your grains and then use the grain percent button to adjust the percentages.

Adjust Grains by Percent

Beyond Design

While the recipe design page still offers everything you need to build great beers, many advanced users wanted to be able to look under the hood to see details about their brewing session. So in addition to the design tab for building recipes, there are now tabs for yeast starters, mash details, fermentation, water and notes. As a beginning or even intermediate brewer, you may not every need to look at these details as the design tool has what you need to get started — but the details are there when you want them.

Mash Tab for a Recipe

Add More to BeerSmith 2

A lot of people liked the recipe packs and vendor specific ingredients I had as downloads for BeerSmith 1.0. But they did not like how hard it was to add them. So for BeerSmith 2, I’ve added a “Add-on” manager that lets you grab updated ingredient files and recipe packs from the web.

Download Add-ons From the Web

The Other Great Stuff You Expect from BeerSmith

I’ve carried over the best features from BeerSmith 1.4 as well. These include step by step instructions for any recipe, multiple report formats (HTML and text, including the ability to make your own reports), the ability to read and write BeerSmith 1.x files – even on the Macintosh, full support for metric, english and imperial units, in-field math and unit conversion, and much more. BeerSmith 2.0 even has support built in for translation – making it possible to have non-english speaking versions built by the BeerSmith community.

When is it Coming?

I’m targeting an early June release date for BeerSmith 2.0 – before the AHA National Homebrewer Conference in mid-June. The pricing and preorder information are available here – and if you order during the preorder period you can get a substantial discount!

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BeerSmith Hops and Yeast Updates

Brad Smith — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 03:01:58 +0000

This week I took a few hours to enter the latest yeast and hops into BeerSmith for you instead of writing a blog article. Many of you have been asking for some of the newest hops and yeasts to be included in a data update – so here it is.

First check your version – you should have the latest version of BeerSmith which is 1_40 Build 038 – you can see your current version using the About command on the Help menu. If you don’t have the latest version of BeerSmith, or would just like to give BeerSmith a free trial run, you can download it here and install from our main download page.

Once you have the latest version installed, you can use the “Update BeerSmith from Internet” command on the Tools menu to download the new hops/yeasts. You can also do this manually by downloading the files (links below) and using the “Import and Merge” command on the File menu to import them into your Hops and Yeast views respectively (Go to View->Hops or View->Yeast before importing them).

The new/updated yeasts are here and hops are here. If you have “Citra” hops and two yeasts from “Brewferm” lab, then the update was successfully installed.

A short post this week – but I’ll be back in a few days with a new podcast and post a new article on a new beer style next week. Have a great week and thank you for supporting BeerSmith!

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BeerSmith Software Video Tutorials

Brad Smith — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:56:19 +0000

We recently assembled a series of video tutorials for using our BeerSmith Home Brewing software. There is an overview video as well as a series of 10 tutorials on using various features of the program. You will need an Adobe flash viewer installed in your browser to watch the videos. The videos cover many of the basic features, but I’m sure there are many other topics that could be covered. I’m asking that you suggest topics you would like to see by adding a comment below.

Links to the Videos

BeerSmith Overview (4:00)
Creating a Recipe with BeerSmith (2:57)
Making a Personal Equipment Profile (3:37)
Scaling the Size of a Recipe (1:53)
Adjusting the Gravity of a Recipe (1:16)
Changing the Color of a Recipe (1:17)
Importing Recipes from the Web (3:25)
Using the Shopping List (2:18)
Converting a Recipe from All Grain to Extract (1:41)
Overview of Standalone Tools (3:27)
Using English and Metric Units (2:50)

I have to say that putting together the videos was a fun experience for me. Every aspect of the project from selecting basic sound equipment, finding good screencasting software, to editing and packaging the final videos was interesting and challenging. Previously I had not spent much time with video editing software, audio recording or screencasting. I hope you enjoy the result.

If you have suggestions for other tutorials you would like to see, please leave a comment below. I plan to build additional videos as time allows. Thank you for joining us on the BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog. I’ll be back next week with more articles on homebrewing.

Happy New Year!!

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Ten Reasons to use Beer Brewing Software

Brad Smith — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:37:59 +0000

Many homebrewers are not aware of how brewing software can dramatically improve the quality and consistency of their home brew. Brewing without doing the math is kind of like shooting darts blindfolded, and software makes the math much easier. This week, we take a look at some of the ways brewing software can make a difference in beer design and how it can improve your brewing day.

Now as a disclaimer, I obviously am affiliated with BeerSmith brewing software, but even if you don’t choose our package, I highly recommend you try the various beer brewing software programs available and select the one that suits you best. Your beer will be better for it.

Design Great Beer in Minutes – Building a recipe with beer software is as simple as picking the ingredients you want from a list. A typical package has several hundred varieties of hops, grains, yeasts and more that are pre-entered for your use. Picking from a list of ingredients is much easier than thumbing through a set of reference books.
Brew Consistently Good Beer – By tracking your ingredients, recipe used, original gravity and taste of your beer you can improve your brewing process and make more consistent, better tasting beer. You can keep track of old recipes, see how changes affect your color, gravity and bitterness, and design better beers.
Brew the Style you Want – Brewing software lets you select a target beer style and match the color, bitterness and suggest ingredients as you build the recipe. As you add ingredients, the software estimates each of these and lets you compare the current values to the style you selected. This will help you come much closer to your target beer style the first time out.
Share Recipes – Brewing software that supports open standards like BeerXML give you access to thousands of recipes online that you can download, import and customize to your taste. Many of the popular packages have dedicated recipe sites available. You can also email recipes to your friends, post them on a web site or share them in a variety of formats.
Get Step by Step Instructions – Software like BeerSmith will generate step-by-step instructions customized for your recipe, equipment and methods. No fuss, no worries. After you enter your recipe you can get specific brewing instructions generated by the program with a single click.
Stay Organized – Keep all of your brewing records in one place. Keep a brewing log of your past brewing sessions, schedule your next brew, record new ideas and manipulate recipes from the web. Refine your favorite recipes to perfect your brewing technique.
Match your Brewing Equipment – The equipment you use to brew has a huge impact on the taste of your beer. With brewing software you can set up your equipment settings once and apply that to any recipe to get accurate calculations and estimates.
All Grain Made Easy – Modern equipment and ingredients have made all grain brewing more accessible than ever. Infusion mashing for all-grain brewing involves a fairly complex set of calculations to determine the amount and temperature of water to be added at each step. In BeerSmith, you just pick the infusion profile you desire and the software provides detailed instructions that match your equipment and ingredients.
Manage Inventory, Track Prices and go Shopping – The best brewing software includes tools to manage your inventory of ingredients, determine the cost of each brew and even generate shopping lists for a particular recipe for your next trip to the store. This makes it much easier to keep track of what you need and avoid those “extra trips”.
Software Costs Less than a Batch of Beer – Brewing software is cheap– typically from $20-25 for the top commercial packages. One bad tasting batch of beer costs more.

Want to try brewing software yourself?

Learn More About Brewing Software
BeerSmith Brewing Software – Download a free trial
Other popular packages include Promash, BeerTools and Strangebrew

Thanks again for joining us on the BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog. We appreciate your continued support, and will return to our regularly schedule beer brewing articles next week.

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Converting All Grain Recipes to Malt Extract

Brad Smith — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 05:54:21 +0000

This week we take a look how you can convert an all grain recipe to malt extract (or back). The majority of brewers (perhaps 70%) brew with malt extract recipes, though most serious enthusiasts have made the switch to all-grain. Yet it is the small percentage of expert brewers who write all of the brewing books and publish a large portion of recipes online. This can leave many extract brewers out in the cold.

The basic process for converting an all grain recipe to extract is as follows:

Convert the base malt (usually pale malt grains) to an equivalent amount of extract
Adjust the color of the beer down to match the original color
Dial the hops up to match the IBUs of the original recipe

Converting a recipe is best done with the aid of brewing software or a good spreadsheet since you need to be able to adjust the original color, IBUs and original gravity estimates. At the end of the article, I will cover exactly how to do this using our software in a single step. However, I believe it’s important to understand what’s going on under the hood.

Converting Grains to Malt Extract

For the first step, convert your base malt to extract. The base malt is easy to identify as it is the largest ingredient in the beer – typically 5-10 lbs of pale malt. For example, let’s look at an all-grain ale with 8 lbs of pale malt and 1 lb of crystal malt. The simplest base malt conversion is to just multiply the number of pounds of pale male by 0.75 to get the pounds of liquid extract. Therefore 8 pounds of pale malt becomes 6 pounds of liquid extract.

An equivalent conversion for dry extract is 0.6, so 8 pounds of pale malt becomes 4.8 pounds of dry malt. A more accurate conversion would actually take the potential of the grain and extract into account when converting malt, but I will leave that topic for a future article.

To simplify things, we leave the specialty malts (1 lb of crystal) alone and switch to steeping them instead of mashing them. Some specialty malts (notably wheats, Munich malt, flaked and terrified grains) cannot be steeped and need to be replaced with a reasonable substitute. For example, those grains listed in our online grain listing as “must mash” should not be steeped. The same is true if you have a large proportion of specialty malt.

A good rule of thumb is you should steep no more than 3-5 lbs of specialty grains in the final extract recipe. Obviously you want to choose your malt extract to match the original color and style of the beer. If you are converting a wheat beer, choose a wheat extract. Beers with large amounts of Munich malt require a Munich extract. If you are making a light colored beer, pick the palest extract you can find. Pale extract is always a good starting point.

Matching Beer Color

Once you have your base malt converted, the next step is to match your color. Malt extracts are almost always darker than the equivalent pale malt due to darkening in production and storage, so you will need to reduce the color and quantity your specialty malts to match the same color as the original beer.

To manually calculate the color of both your original beer and the final beer you can view our article on beer color. However, I recommend using your favorite brewing software or a spreadsheet to simplify the process.

If you don’t have home brewing software, the best way to come up with the same color as the original is really by trial and error. You can swap the existing specialty grains with lighter color grains (try 40L Crystal as a substitute for 60L Crystal malt for example), or you can reduce the amount of your darker colored specialty grains until you match the color of the original recipe.

Some very light colored beer styles such as Koelsch may be impossible to precisely match using malt extract simply because commercial malt extracts are much darker than equivalent pale malt grains. In these cases, try to get as light as you can and consider using malts such as Carafoam (if appropriate) to replace crystal malts if appropriate to further reduce the color.

Adjusting Bitterness

The last step is to match the bitterness (IBUs) of the original beer. When going from all grain to extract this involves adding more hops because partial batch boils result in lower hop utilization than full batch boils used by all grain brewers. Some use a rule of thumb such as “add 20% more hops” but it is far more accurate to calculate and match the IBUs for both versions.

Again a spreadsheet or program is needed to calculate the International Bitterness Units (IBUs) of the original beer and final beer. Don’t use HBU’s (Home bitterness units) here since the boil sizes between all grain and extract brews are much different. Before starting, make sure you have the correct boil size both for the original beer and converted recipe set correctly when calculating IBUs. All grain brewers use full size boils (6+ gallons for a 5 gallon brew), while extract brewers use much smaller boils (perhaps 2-3 gallons for 5 gallons of beer). This has a large effect on IBU calculation.

Once you have both calculations set up, simply increase the hop additions incrementally until you reach your target bitterness. You now have an extract beer recipe that will closely match your all grain recipe.

You can use the above three step guide with any brewing software or well designed spreadsheet to manually perform the three steps (convert base malt, adjust color, adjust bitterness). If you wish to convert back (extract to all grain), you can follow the same three steps, but this time divide by the conversion factor (6 lbs of pale extract/0.75 = 8 lbs of pale malt).

BeerSmith has a nice conversion wizard built in to do all three steps in one shot. Open the recipe you want converted, click on the ‘Convert Recipe’ toolbar button (or “Convert Recipe Wizard” on the “Actions” menu). Select the type (All Grain, Extract, Partial Mash) of conversion you wish to perform. Pick the target equipment profile you wish to convert to (since your extract equipment likely has a much smaller boil pot) and press the OK button. The program will perform all three steps and give you the finished recipe. It is a very handy feature if you have recipes from a book or the web that you wish to convert quickly.

Thanks for tuning in to the BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog this week – I appreciate your continued support of the blog. Please consider subscribing for regular weekly delivery of articles by RSS or email if you enjoyed our blog.

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New BeerSmith Retail CDs

Brad Smith — Thu, 15 May 2008 04:09:15 +0000

We’re pleased to announce that our BeerSmith Home Brewing Recipe Software is now available on CD through selected retailers.

The new CD’s are professionally replicated in a slim CD case, and shrink wrapped with a UPC code for retail display and sale. Each CD comes with a personal registration key and installation instructions on the inside cover. We also have display stands available for counter-top display.

Currently the CD’s are only being sold through our affiliate network, and are not available directly from our web site. Many of our affiliates will be receiving them in the coming weeks.

You can help by referring your local brewing supply shop to us. Please visit our wholesale affiliate site for information on purchasing BeerSmith CD’s for resale, or share this article with your local store owner.

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The First Wort Hop: Beer Brewing Techniques

Brad Smith — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 01:20:25 +0000

Brewing beer with first wort hops (FWH) is a method I have used extensively for beer brewing over the last few years to improve the character of many recipes. First wort hopping produces complex bitterness and aroma that is both smooth and pleasing to the pallet. The method has become quite popular with homebrewers and microbreweries over the last 10 years due to the pleasant and complex flavor produced.

FWH involves adding a portion of the hops to the boiler at the very beginning of the sparging process, allowing these hops to steep as the sparging completes and remaining in the kettle throughout the boil. Add the hops to the boiler as soon as you have finished recirculating the first runnings.

First Wort Hopping is not a new method, but is in fact an old one from Germany that was largely forgotten until Priess, Neuremburg and Mitter published an article on it in 1995 (Brauwelt International, Vol IV, p 308). The method was originally used by brewers at the beginning of the century to enhance bitterness rather than overall flavor. Adding hops to the wort early in the sparging process reduced the Ph of the mash, which enhanced isomerization of later hop additions, increasing overall hop utilization during the boil.

Sources vary, but most testing indicates that first wort hopping will increase the number of International Bitterness Units (IBUs) by as much as 10%. Given the hop shortage I wrote about earlier, increased utilization is an added bonus. However, taste perception is different. In blind taste testing across a number of articles, the overall flavor of first wort hops is perceived as smoother, less sharp, and had a more pleasing aroma. Hop bitterness was perceived as harmonic and uniformly bitter. In blind taste tests, the FWH were preferred by 11 of 12 test subjects. (Ref: FWH, Brewery.org)

First wort hopping can be used both by all grain and partial mash brewers. As the FWH method originated in Germany, it has most often been associated with Pilsner beers, but other beer styles with complex hop flavor could benefit. Aromatic, noble and other low alpha hops are recommended, as high alpha hops may provide too sharp of an increase in bitterness.

The amount to hops to use varies. Most sources recommend using 30% of the overall hop schedule and moving it to FWH. Other sources recommend taking aromatic hops from the end of the boil and moving it forward to use as FWH. I have even experimented on my Wit beer with using FWH exclusively and had good results. My limited experience indicates that if you are looking for a smooth pilsner style hoppiness, moving a portion (30%) of the finishing hops forward is appropriate. If you want the hops to blend into the background of the beer for relatively low hop rates, you can consider moving a larger portion of your hop schedule forward. FWH in general will produce a more complex, blended hop flavor.

Calculating the FWH numerically is quite simple. In most cases an adjustment (10%) is added to the calculated bitterness in IBUs to account for the higher utilization of FWH methods. For BeerSmith users, there is a checkbox for first wort hops available as you add each hop addition, and BeerSmith will adjust the IBU calculation to account for the higher utilization. Despite the slightly higher IBUs of FWH, most authors do not recommend reducing the overall hop rate to compensate.

Overall, I have been very pleased with the effect first wort hopping has had on my beers. I have taken to using it on a larger variety of beer styles recently with good results. FWH seems to produce a more complex, pleasing and harmonic hop flavor and aroma that beer drinkers find pleasing.

Thanks again for your support. If you like this article please subscribe using the link on the left sidebar for more great articles each week!

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How to Batch Sparge: A Guide for Batch Sparging and No Sparge

Brad Smith — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 02:14:46 +0000

Today we look at traditional fly sparging, batch sparging and no-sparge brewing techniques. Batch sparge techniques have become very popular with homebrewers recently, primarily because batch sparging requires less time and less equipment than traditional techniques at minimal added cost.

Sparging Techniques

Sparging (or lautering) is done at the end of the mash process, before the boil. The purpose is to extract the sugars created by the mashing process and dissolve them into hot water to form wort. We will then take the sugary wort, add some hops, boil it and ferment it to make our favorite beverage: Beer.

There are three techniques for sparging: the fly sparge, no sparge and batch sparge. Traditionally brewers use a fly sparge, where hot sparge water is continuously sprayed over the top of the mash tun to replace the hot wort as it is drained from the bottom of the mash tun. This gives a continuous flow, ideally with the flow in matching the flow out. Commercial brewers will monitor the specific gravity of the hot wort coming out of the mash tun and stop when it reaches approximately 1.010 to avoid off flavors and tannins associated with low wort concentration.

Duplicating a traditional fly sparge at home does create some challenges for the homebrewer. One must have not only a method for spreading water continuously over the grain bed, but also constantly monitor the flow of the water into the mash tun to make sure the grains do not run dry or overflow. Also fly sparging is a slow process – requiring as much as 60-90 minutes in some cases.

Batch Sparge and No Sparge

Two alternatives to fly sparging are the “no sparge” and “batch sparge” techniques. For these techniques a fixed amount of hot sparge water is added to the mash tun, the tun is gently stirred to assure even extraction for the batch, and then the entire mash tun is drained into the boiler, often at a fast rate (i.e. just open the spigot). The “no sparge” option uses a higher water to grain ratio when mashing and drains it all out in a single operation, while batch spargers use two or more sparge water additions, draining the mash tun empty each time.

The downside of batch sparging is reduced brewhouse efficiency – since a significant amount of sugar will be left undissolved and be discarded with the grains rather than make its way into the wort. For example a homebrewer fly sparging might achieve 73% brewhouse efficiency while a batch sparger might only get 66% brewhouse efficiency. Homebrewers compensate by adding more grain and just take the hit on efficiency.

For a commercial brewer the extra loss would be costly, but for the homebrewer making a 5 gallon batch of beer adding 1-2 pounds of extra grain (perhaps $2-4 in cost) is not significant. For most homebrewers, the extra few dollars of grain is a good trade off when compared to the extra time and equipment needed to do a proper fly sparge. Batch sparging also has the advantage of higher gravity for the runnings, which will rarely come even remotely close to the 1.010 limit mentioned earlier.

An additional concern with batch sparging is that stirring the mash upsets the grain bed, allowing more tannins and grain bits to make it into the wort. To reduce this risk, some brewers use a hybrid batch sparge method where they add sparge water slowly to the top and avoid stirring or completely draining the mash tun. This hybrid method does require additional time for the water to flow through the grain bed – much like a traditional fly sparge.

Batch sparging is more popular than no-sparge because it lets you use a traditional water to grain ratio when mashing, a smaller mash tun (typically a 5 gallon mash tun for a 5 gallon batch), and achieves much higher efficiency than no sparge options.

Batch Sparge Calculations

The most popular is a two stage batch sparge with equal size batches (equal amount of wort drawn off, not equal amount of sparge water added). Two equal size runnings of wort (equal batches) also maximizes the extraction efficiency. Calculating the amount of water to add for each sparge is straightforward where boil_size_l is your target boil size in liters, mash_water_l is the number of liters of mash water added and grain_wt_kg is the grain weight:

Two stage batch sparge additions:

batch_1_sparge_liters = (boil_size_l/2 – mash_water_l + grain_wt_kg * 0.625)
batch_2_liters = boil_size_l / 2

If you have deadspace under the mash tun, you must also add that amount of extra water to the first batch. If you have the newest release of BeerSmith (V1.4 build 036 or above), you can get an optimal “equal runnings” batch sparge that duplicates the sparge water calculations described above by selecting any of the default batch sparge mash profiles. The batch sparge amounts needed are displayed using the brewsheet (Preview Brewsheet) for your recipe.

The next item to consider is how much extra grain is required to use your batch sparge method. Unfortunately it is difficult to know this in advance, since your mash efficiency will depend on the milling of your grain, efficiency of your lautering system and other factors. A good rule of thumb is to add about 10% to your grain bill (or alternately take about 7% off your starting overall brewhouse efficiency of the recipe) for the first try. Some people use this “rule of thumb” method to size their batch sparge grain bill.

If you use brewing software or a spreadsheet, you can calculate your overall brewhouse efficiency and use that number to properly size future batches. In BeerSmith, these calculations can be accessed from the “Brewhouse efficiency” button in the top section of any open recipe. This display your estimated overall efficiency and OG in the “Brewhouse Efficiency based on Target Volume” section. Enter your actual volume into the fermenter and measured OG into the dialog and the program will calculate your actual overall brewhouse efficiency which you can use for your next batch. After a few batch sparge trials you should have a good handle on what your brewhouse efficiency, and you can then use the “scale recipe” command to adjust web recipes to your personal brewhouse efficiency.

Batch sparging is a great time-saving method for those who are not afraid of purchasing an extra pound or two of grain. Have fun with your batch sparging, and thanks again for taking the time to read this week’s article. Your comments, ideas and social bookmarks are always welcome.

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New BJCP 2008 Style Guide and BeerSmith Batch Sparging Release

Brad Smith — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 02:14:33 +0000

The Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) recently released an updated beer style guide for 2008. BJCP has become the most popular beer style guide for home brewing competition here in the United States. You can access the full BJCP style guide here.

The new 2008 BJCP style guide includes significant rework to many Belgian styles, revised commercial examples, updated color, OG and ABV calculations and minor changes to several styles.

The latest version of BeerSmith was just released and is available on our download page. The new release incorporates the new 2008 BJCP style guidelines as well as the complete Danish beer style guideline. You can set the style guide used from the “Brewing” page of the “Options” dialog (tools menu).

The 2008 BJCP Style information in BeerSmith consists of excerpts from the full style guide, and is excerpted with permission from the BJCP Style Guidelines, copyright 2008, Beer Judge Certification Program, Inc.

In addition, the latest BeerSmith release incorporates a new batch sparge option to generate “equal runnings” batches. Sparging with equal runnings generates optimal efficiency for batch spargers. The batch sparge mash profiles were all updated to use this new option. You can also do it manually by editing any mash profile and checking “Sparge using equal size batches” and unchecking “Drain the mash tun before starting…” in the Batch Sparge options section of any mash profile. The calculated batch sparge water amounts will be shown on your brewsheet.

Get the Latest Version of BeerSmith – with new Batch Sparge options & 2008 Style Guide

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All Grain Beer Brewing With An Infusion Mash Setup

Brad Smith — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 01:34:01 +0000

This week we take a look at instructions for all grain beer brewing using a single step infusion mash setup. Infusion mashing with a Gott type cooler, will unleash the full power of all grain brewing while keeping it simple.

Are you an intermediate brewer looking to make the leap to 5 gallon or 10 gallon all grain brewing? Do you want to learn how to brew all grain beer? Don’t be afraid of the mashing process. The vast majority of all grain brewers use a one step infusion mash to create outstanding homebrewed beer.

To use a one step infusion mash, you need some basic all grain brewing equipment. This includes a 7-9 gallon brew pot and a 5 gallon or 10 gallon Gott type water cooler with a false bottom. I personally use a Phils false bottom (9” diameter) in my cooler and drain using a hose that runs through the removed tap for the cooler. A properly sized stopper replaces the water tap as shown in the photo.

The infusion mash process is remarkably simple. Crush all of your grains in a mill first. The grain should be finely ground, but the husks of the grain should be relatively intact as the husks act as a filter in the grain bed. Next, heat a pre-measured amount of water, called an infusion, to a target temperature and mix it with the grains. This infusion step (mashing process) breaks down complex sugars in the crushed grain and converts it to simple sugars that can be fermented by yeast.

You can use one of many spreadsheets, online calculators (ex: here) or a brewing program such as BeerSmith to calculate the temperature and amount of infusion water needed for the mash. Make sure you use the correct equipment settings and total grain amount in the calculation. If using BeerSmith, make sure you have your equipment set up to include the water cooler as your mash tun and choose a “Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out” as your mash profile. Use a target step temperature of 154F, which is an excellent mid-range temperature for your first infusion mash. For BeerSmith, the “Preview Brewsheet” button on the toolbar will display step-by-step brewing instructions including the amount of infusion water to add.

Heat the recommended amount of infusion water to the temperature provided by your calculator or brewsheet. Slowly alternate adding water and grain to your mash tun until you have all of the water and grains mixed together. Insert a thermometer so you can track the temperature against your target step temperature. Close the top and let your mash temperature settle for 5-10 minutes.

Slowly mix your mash every 10-15 minutes to keep the temperature even and avoid hotspots. The mash mixture should reach a steady temperature close to 154F. If it is off by a significant amount, you can add a small amount of boiling or cold water to achieve the target temperature. Leave your mash mixture in the cooler for at least 45 minutes to assure that the sugar conversion is complete.

After 45 minutes, sparge the mash with hot water to extract the sweet wort that will be your beer. Sparging is nothing more than rinsing the mash with hot water to extract the sugars and create wort that you will later ferment to make beer.

Heat several gallons of water to 178F and slowly add it to to the top of your mash tun while drawing wort from the bottom of the grain tun using your false bottom and collect it in your boiler. The wort coming from the mash tun will start out cloudy with bits of grain and husks, but will soon run clear. Take the first few quarts of wort from the tun (the first runnings) and add them back to the top of your mash tun.

As you continue to sparge, it is important to keep the flow rate slow to maximize the sugars extracted. Lautering a 5 gallon mash tun should take at least 40-50 minutes to collect 6 gallons of wort. From this point forward, the process used to brew your beer is the same as it was with extract brewing. Add hops, boil the wort for 60-90 minutes, cool it quickly to room temperature and add your yeast to ferment your beer.

Switching to single infusion all grain brewing is a great way to gain more control over your beer, and requires only a little bit of additional equipment (a large cooler, false bottom, and full size brew pot) and time. The single infusion mash provides a great starting point for those transitioning to all grain. Take the leap, and enjoy brewing your first all grain today!

If you enjoyed this article, please consider leaving a comment or bookmarking us on one of the social sites below. You can also subscribe to future articles via email or RSS using the subscription bar on the left.

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Better Beer with Late Malt Extract Additions

Brad Smith — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 02:42:21 +0000

Today we look at a method for malt extract brewers that can improve the quality and color of your extract beer. Both liquid and dried malt extract beers suffer from an effect called a Maillard reaction as well as carmelization when brewing. A Maillard reaction is a chemical reaction that occurs between amino acids and sugars in the wort, and it accentuated by the use of extract in a concentrated boil. Carmelization occurs when liquid extract or excess sugars settle to the bottom of the brew pot during the boil and the sugars carmelize (harden) in the bottom of the pot. Of the two, the Maillard reaction actually accounts for the majority of the color darkening.

This typically darkens the beer, and in extreme cases can also affect the taste of the beer. Obviously this is a problem for brewers of light colored beers. The effect is also common in high gravity beers in small brew pots because of the higher proportion of extract to water when boiling.

To avoid the ill effects of the Maillard reaction and carmelization, malt extract brewers should delay the addition of the majority of their extracts until late in the boiling process. The extract must be added late enough in the boil to avoid darkening, but early enough to assure that the extract is sterilized. Boiling the extract for about 15 minutes is a good balance.

I recommend adding a small amount of malt extract (perhaps 15-25%) early in the boil if using separate hops. The sugars and enzymes in the extract aid in extracting alpha acids (bitterness) from the hops. Boiling hops with a small amount of extract will result in smoother hop flavors and appropriate bitterness that you can’t achieve with plain water alone.

Late extract additions do present one challenge for the brewer. Late extract additions increase the bitterness of the beer. Predicting the International Bitterness Units (IBUs) of late extract additions to match your target style is mathematically complex. Most brewing software and spreadsheets are simply not designed to handle multiple hop and late malt extract additions in the boil. The gravity and bitterness of the boil will vary with each ingredient added.

To do the calculation by hand you would need to calculate the gravity of the boil at each stage, bitterness contribution from each hop addition taking this gravity into account and then combine these into one overall IBU number for the brew. To compensate, some brewers use a “rule of thumb” such as “reduce hops by 20% when using late extract brews”. Another method is to calculate the hops addition without the late extract and then add 5-10% more hops to compensate for lower utilization during the last 15 minutes of the boil.

Recently we did add a late extract option to BeerSmith. To use the late extract option, simply check the “late extract” box when adding extracts to your recipe and specify the boil time. BeerSmith will include all of your hop additions and late extract additions into the IBU (bitterness) calculations, combining them appropriately to predict your overall bitterness (IBUs).

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Updated Beer Recipes Archive

Brad Smith — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 02:29:41 +0000

I recently reorganized the BeerSmith home brewing recipes archive. It now lists over 300 web recipes by beer style and also has new recipe packs for malt extract, all grain and partial mash brewers.

Thanks again to all who contributed these outstanding recipes for public use. Join us on the BeerSmith discussion forum if you want to contribute your own recipes for future updates.

Updated Beer Recipes Archive – Over 300 recipes by style, plus recipe packs
Our Discussion Forum – Contribute new recipes here

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How to Keg Homebrew Beer

Brad Smith — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 06:49:23 +0000

Would you like to learn how to start kegging your own beer? Kegging your homebrew saves time and money and offers a very convenient way to serve your beer. This article walks you through the basics of purchasing a kegging system, filling your kegs and serving your kegged beer at home.

Purchase a Beer Kegging System

If you don’t already have a beer kegging system, you can purchase one from your local homebrew store or a major online brewing supply store. A kegging system consists of a keg, a CO2 (carbon dioxide) gas tank, a pressure regulator and two hoses. One hose feeds CO2 gas into your keg inlet, and the other hose brings the beer from the keg to your tap. Keg sizes vary, but the most popular size is the 5 gallon Cornelius or “Corney” keg.

If you are just starting out with kegging your own beer, it is best to purchase a complete starter system from a single store. Complete systems typically run less than $200 for an initial setup including all of the supplies mentioned above. Several popular brewing supply stores that sell kegging equipment can be found on our links page. Once you have your kegging system you will need to fill the CO2 tank with CO2 from a local beverage supply or gas supply store.

Cornelius Keg CO2 Tank

Filling a Keg

Give your keg a thorough cleaning before use, as many used Cornelius kegs have soda residue present. Pressurize the keg with gas once and check for leaks by applying a small amount of soapy water around the hose fittings and valves. Sterilize the keg with a stainless steel-safe agent such as iodophor before filling. Fill the keg by siphoning from your homebrew fermenter, being careful not to splash or aerate the beer.

Once the keg is full, put the top on it and pressurize the keg using your CO2 tank. Purge any remaining air in the keg and displace it with CO2. Do this by pressurizing the keg with CO2, then release air using the release valve on the top of the keg. Repeat this 4-6 times to make sure that all of the air is out and replaced by CO2. Once the keg has been pressurized with CO2, you can store it in this configuration for several months as long as the keg has no leaks.

Carbonating the Keg

Kegs must be stored under pressure and refrigeration to carbonate properly. I use an old refrigerator to keep 3 of the 5 gallon kegs on tap at all times, and I’ve drilled a hole in the side of the fridge so I can keep the CO2 tank on the outside. To calculate the carbonation pressure needed, put a thermometer in your refrigerator and leave it for a few hours. This will give you your carbonation temperature.

Next, using a Carbonation calculator such as BeerSmith (Carbonation item on the Tools menu), enter the volumes of CO2 desired to set the carbonation level (2.4 is a good starting number to use), enter the refrigerator temperature and volume of beer. BeerSmith will calculate the CO2 pressure needed to force carbonate the beer. If you don’t have access to a carbonation tool, start your system at 10 psi of pressure and adjust it later. Set your CO2 tank regulator to the desired pressure, hook it to your keg and place the keg in the refrigerator. Again, it is not a bad idea to check your lines and connectors for leaks if you have not used the system before. The keg will begin to carbonate in a day or two and reach full carbonation within a week.

Enjoy Kegged Homebrew

You are now ready to enjoy your kegged homebrew! Always pour your beer down the side of the glass and open the tap fully. If you find that the carbonation level is too high, simply dial your CO2 pressure down a bit. If the beer is too flat, adjust the keg pressure up a bit. Invite some friends over and enjoy fresh homebrew from the tap!

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Welcome to the BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog

Brad Smith — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 07:35:30 +0000

Welcome to the BeerSmith.com brewing blog. New content will be added weekly on a wide range of brewing topics including brewing techniques, home brewing, ingredients, brewing specific styles and how to use BeerSmith Software. For the first few weeks we will be publishing a few articles a week, but intend to settle down to one article a week in the long term. We also will have articles from guest authors, and welcome your thoughts, suggestions and ideas.

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