Using Beersmith 2 for batch sparge.

I have finally accumulated all the equipt that I need to try my first all grain brew - it will be an IPA, hopefully similar
to Sweetwater IPA that i enjoyed greatly on a recent trip to the  US!

I had a homebrew store in Asheville NC put together an all grain kit of ingredients that they figured should be a fairly close match to Sweeetwater IPA.

I have put all the ingredients that they provided me into Beersmith 2 - as well as being my first attempt at all grain,  this will be my first use of Beersmith 2.


Once I did that, it appeared to me that the hop schedule that the store suggested was going to give me close to 100 IBU, according to Beersmith2. 

I do like hoppy beers, but I think something around 60 will be more to my preference and so I fiddled with with the hop schedule to bring it down to that range in Beersmith2 - hope that  works out ok!



But here is my question .........

Beersmith2 tells me to mash in with 17.27L of water which sounds fine (I have a 10gal round cooler with stainless false bottom)


But then Beersmith2 tells me to batch sparge with 2 steps,  1.6L,  then 12.6 L.

I don't understand this - why wouldn't I just put the two volumes (1.6 + 12.6) in all at once?      I can't see it making any difference, and so unless I can find out the reason for Beersmith2's  suggestion, that is what I will plan to  do.


Anyone have any words of wisdom?  If this is just some sort of glitch with Beersmith2,    can I tweak Beersmith  somehow to just give me s single sparge volume?  No big deal I guess.


Many thanks ..........  Brian.  Burlington Ont.



 


 

Still hoping for a response to my initial post. 

Anyone know why Beersmith tells me to mash in and then  do my sparging  with two separate sparge volumes?

I could understand it if my mash tun was small, but it is 10 gallons and I only will be making 5 gallon batches, so mash tun capacity wouldn't seem to be the reason for two separate sparges.

Cheers  ....... Brian.

It sounds to me like you are doing a no sparge technique. You need to drain the tun and then add more water and drain again in order to batch sparge. If you want to do a no sparge, I believe Beersmith has a selectable option for this.

Big Chicken has it right-

To clarify, there are 4 "batch sparge options" that control how the batch sparge is to be conducted. 

1.  "Batch sparge..." checkbox
2.  "...using batches that fill" value field.
3.  "Use equal batch sizes" checkbox
4.  "Drain mash-tun before sparging"

#1 is required to select batch-sparging. 

#2 determines how much of the mash tun to fill when calculating the maximum sparge volume.  90% is a commonly used (and default) value so that you have room to stir.

#3 will force beersmith to divide the sparges into "exactly" equal sizes.  This may result in an extra sparge step, but maximizes the efficiency of the sparge.  Its a small difference that might not be worth the extra time required for the extra step.

#4 causes beersmith to do what the option says.  Without this checked the first sparge step will add more water to the existing mash before draining the entire MLT.  I don't know the reason one might NOT drain first, but I'm sure some people do it that way. Hence the option.

My normal settings are:

#1 checked
#2 90%
#3 checked...although I frequently uncheck to see the difference.
#4 checked.

Thanks Tom & Big Chicken!

I messed around with beersmith 2 a bit more and - although I am not sure what I did, it finally gave me just two volumes to work with,  the strike water volume and the sparge water volume.  I guess I should go back to square one and read teh help files again to best understand the program!

I did a few manual calculations - ie grain absorption, deadspace, etc,  so see if the total of the two volumes sounded reasonable.  It did, so yesterday, I tried my first all grain batch using the info from Beersmith.

I made a very complete checklist so as not to forget anything, and all worked out fine, despite a couple of friends and neighbours talking to me and distracting me during the process in the garage!

I was amazed how accurately Beersmith calculated the correct strike water temp to give me exactly the correct mash temp

The only slight problem I had was that towards the end of the boil, I was having trouble keeping the wort on the boil.  Turned out my propane bottle was icing up and the flame was dropping somewhat.  I think this was because I am using a Bayou Classic banjo burner that burns very well and gives a nice clear flame, but I imagine it really sucks up the gas at a high rate and caused the icing.

Next time I will have a second propane bottle on had to switch to if the first starts to ice up.

Pitched my yeast starter (White Labs San Diego Super Yeast) last night at about 5pm and this morning Tuesday)  at 8am I have a good healthy fermentation going with about 2" of krausen.

I was surprised how quickly the fermentation started.  But this is the first time I have used a liquid yeast, and the first time for making a starter with a stir plate, so I imagine that is the reason for the minimal lag time.

I'm already looking forward to getting the brew out of my 6.5 gal primary carboy into a 5gal secondary so I can dry hop it and get another brew started!

My SG came out a bit lower than Beersmith lead to to expect.  It estimated 1.072,  but I got 1.060, confirmed with both a refractometer and hydrometer.

Not sure why the SG came in a bit low maybe it indicates my mash technique was not as good as it should have been?  I'm ok with 1.060 though, should still hopefully give me a good IPA! 

At least I didn't get a stuck sparge which I had read about and was nervous to encounter!


Thanks again ..........  Brian


PS - Tom,  I think it was ticking that equal batch sizes that may have caused the strange sparge volume numbers that I got.  I just used two volumes in the end, strike water and sparge.    I will go back and re-read the Beersmith2 help files!