Trying to setup and understand Beer Smith

[pola0502ds]

So I have a (3) 15 gallon sanke keg setup with a rims tube. I am trying to set up my equipment profile and I don't understand the boil off and volume loss as far as what to put in it. I just built this system so I don't know any of the numbers. Beer smith right now has my boil off at 2 gallon, lauter dead space set to 1 gallon, loss to trub at 1 gallon and fermentor loss at .75. Do those all seem right?

When you figure a new recipe and say you call it a 10 gallon, is 10 gallons what you want to end up with after it's done fermenting and thats what you have left to bottle and keg?

I'm asking these questions because right now for a 10 gallon batch beersmith is telling me I need a vessel large enough for 16.5 gallons but I only have a 15 gallon keg. I know something must be set wrong.

Also, when set your mash profile for example a single infusion, full body, with mash out, it's telling me I need to add water to bring it up to 170. I just want to use direct heat to bring it up to 170, is there anyway to change that?

Next, is there anyway to record your volumes and everything that happens during your brew so beer smith can calculate everything? I would like to know what my acutally eff. is but all the field are already filled out.

 

[Kaz]

At this point in time, I have to ask if this is Beersmith 1.4 or Beersmith v2. I just installed version 2 last night and while it looks great, I haven't had much time to play with it yet.

 

[pola0502ds]

v2

 

[RonRock]

You could do a "dry run" with your system to figure out all of the losses, and how much boil off you have.

Or take each piece and fill and drain them and see what is left.

I like the idea of a dry run. It will give you a chance to see how things work from step to step. A good chance to work out the kinks. But if you don't want to do that you could just use the numbers Beersmith defaults with and keep a good record when you brew. Then make changes in BS before the next brew. After a few rounds You'll get it dialed in.