Boil volume extract batch - Beersmith

[drhusker18]

Hi all

Looking for input as I start setting up Beersmith to play with extract recipes as I enter home brewing for honing my skills in prep to move to all grain in a half year.

In terms of boil volume and setting up my equipment profile. Doing a 5 gallon full boil batch of extract brew. So does this mean 5 gallon of h20 in my kettle. Because after that (full extract boil) I will add potentially LME and/or DME which will increase the total volume of the pot. So I could end up having a boil volume of 5.5 gal (estimate) depending on the extract. So when I setup my profile should I overestimate my boil volume to account for extract volume or weight? Don't worry about split boils, just looking for a simple answer here.

I have heard some post that it is insignificant but in terms of chemistry class- additions like this do change the w/w, v/v, or w/v specs of a recipe. Another reason I bring this up is for hop utilization and OG. It will have an effect.

Maybe it isn't a big concern and wasn't for my first batch (kit)- but now that I have BS on my iOS, it seems to have an effect I hadn't thought about.

Any advice?????


Found this previous...sorta a defined answer but someone also conflicted.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=401221&highlight=Boil+volume+extract

 

[porterpounder]

Yes if you add 7 lbs (about 1/2 gallon) of LME to 5 gallons of water you're going to get 5.5 boil gallons, but then you're going to boil off about .75-1 gallon with a 60 min boil, so you're going to come back to your original volume anyway.

 

[drhusker18]

Got that clear porter. That is basically the procedure I followed on my first batch. Hit OG spot on. It was a kit recipe. Now I have BS and tinkering a few recipes of my own.

It seems that BS doesn't take that approach. when you tell it your batch size and then it calculating losses in the process to get to a boil volume.

Yes. I have a 30qt pot and it boils off about .75 gal in a brew. When I follow most of the defaults on losses from BS tutorials, it tells me I need to boil 6.37 liquid to get to ~5.6 gal post boil to get 4.6 gal to bottle. Just enough for 48 bottles. If I progress with this much liquid, it will kill IBU and OG, right? Plus I will have way too much wort/beer for fermenter.

So does BS think boil volume value is "water" or " wort" ?

 

[drhusker18]

Could the issue be that I developed an extract recipe based on 5 gal batch with online free software then obtained BS and setting up my equipment profile isn't jiving with the recipe quantities in terms of all the brewing output (IBU, OG, spm). So basically I need to get my equipment finalized to near reality, then reformulate my recipe?

At that, I would assume my boil volume would include my extract?

 

[Brewsncrabs]

You need to do a couple batches and take notes of volumes and losses to create your profile. Defaults are just that. Defaults. You need to create your own.