The infamous "6 Gallon Batch"

[MachineShopBrewing]

I have been following this thread and I have to say that IAR has pretty much nailed how people act generally on forums. I don't post on this forum much, but have been active in the past on other forums. I tend to lurk now because I don't have time or patience to deal with people who don't want to have an intelligent conversation. I posted once on another forum that one of the large national homebrew shops grain mill was wore out(I am local and actually measured the gap) and was gapped way too much(like not even crushing over 50% of the grains too much), just as a public service to people who might order grain and what I got was 3-4 pages of people calling me an idiot because I didn't have my own grain mill, and that I'm just a jackass for posting that.

With regards to this thread- I run original version of Beersmith, so I can't talk on how the new version works. In version one there isn't a separate mash efficiency setting, only a Brewhouse efficiency setting. I am like IAR, I don't care what my overall efficiency into the fermenter is. But when I change that number, it changes my OG based on the lbs of grain. If I leave behind a gallon in the BK, which would change my brewhouse efficiency, that shouldn't change my OG, so Brewhouse efficiency is worthless to me. I have learned over the years how to manipulate my recipe page to get the results I want, but I have to agree that it is not the most effective way to do it.

Let the flames begin....

[IAmRight]

Thanks for the support. Hopefully you don't get too bad of a beatdown.

But when I change that number, it changes my OG based on the lbs of grain. If I leave behind a gallon in the BK, which would change my brewhouse efficiency, that shouldn't change my OG, so Brewhouse efficiency is worthless to me.

The way BeerSmith 2 works is even more devious, in my opinion. If you change trub loss, your OG will stay exactly the same, and your mash efficiency (a number in the fine print that is generated by BeerSmith) is adjusted (by BeerSmith) to make the OG work out right. The only way to correct it is to jimmy with your 'to the fermenter' efficiency until your mash efficiency is the same as it was pre-trub loss change.

I hear Brad added a separate manual calculator to help with generating a new 'to the fermenter' eff when dialing in mash efficiencies or changing trub losses. Interestingly, it only appeared after I made some smart ass rebuttals to the fanboys about BeerSmith's marketing tag line being 'Why do the calcs yourself', yet for the most important number that BeerSmith needs, you are forced to manually calc it, or play the getting warmer/colder game with the 'to the fermenter' efficiency field to get mash efficiency back in line.

I also heard there were some guides on using BeerSmith developed by some testers, but they got heavily edited to remove any sections that exposed the shortcomings of the software- particularly for batch/no sparge and BIAB. The thinking is that for most 5 gal brewers, the errors will be small enough, covered up by human errors, or compensated for after a few batches by blindly adjusting the 'to the fermenter efficiency'.