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New to Beersmith Equipment setup questions

Sugarmker

Apprentice
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Mar 16, 2012
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I'm new to the program and I'm having trouble understanding how to properly set up my equipment profile. I purchased this kit from williams brewing:

http://www.williamsbrewing.com/COMPLETE-BREWERY-WITH-RED-ALE-P2345.aspx

How would I get this equipment set up? There are a lot of fields in the software that I don't understand. Up to this point I have been ordering complete kits and making those. I would like to get a little more advanced and move on to designing my own recipes. Any help you could offer would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

-Gary
 
Some more information on this. It's a 32qt stainless "brewkettle" for the Wort. Then a 5 gallon plastic bucket for fermentation. Same for the priming bucket.

I am just unsure how to get the proper information into the program. Sorry for the newbie questions! I hope someone can help me make some sense out of this or point me in the right direction.

Thanks!
 
I'm not an expert, but my suggestion would be to start with a copy of the "Pot ( 4 Gal/15.1 L) - Extract" profile and edit it such that:

  • The name is pertinent to you.
    Mash tun volume is 8 gal.
    Mash tun weight is whatever your kettle weighs.
    Boil time is your "default" boil length.
    Boil Off - ideally, you'd want to calculate this by boiling a known amount of water for a known length of time and measuring how much you have left.  I think the 0.290 gal default here is a bit low (for me it's 0.875/hr, but that can vary widely for different pots), but that's why it's best to measure and get your real number.
    Batch Volume is your "default" batch size that you're brewing (presumably 5 gal. based on your kit).
    The two loss fields you can set based on your experience or best guess (e.g., how much do you NOT put into the fermenter after the boil and chill, and how much do you NOT rack to the bottling bucket after fermentation). 
    Top up water is how much you want to be adding to the fermenter to reach your batch volume, if you're brewing extract / partial boil batches.
Any settings not discussed above probably do not need to be touched from the default profile I mentioned up top.
That should get you in the ballpark, for starters.  If I'm off-base, hopefully someone better versed in equipment profiles can chime in.
Happy Brewing...

 
 
Thanks for the info! This will get me started for sure! I really appreciate it.
 
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