Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

BeerSmith for a 20BBL ?

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • BeerSmith for a 20BBL ?

    Is anyone using BeerSmith for a 10 or 20 BBL system? If so do you have any tips or tricks? If not, is there something better out there that we should be considering for recipe formulation and scaling?

    Thank you so much
    John

  • #2
    BeerSmith worked fine to me when I moved from 10 gallons to 10bbls. Just create a new equipment profile and input as much information as you can on your system. It likely won't be exact, but will get you in the ballpark. Then after you do a few batches you can figure out what numbers are off and adjust as needed. Once you get enough batches through you won't really need it. I know that ~X amount of grain will give me X gravity, so I only really use it now if I'm going for a specific color.

    Comment


    • #3
      My complaint with Beersmith is in calculating Brewhouse Efficiency.

      You have mash conversion efficiency, pre-boil efficiency, post boil efficiency and finally total Brewhouse Efficiency (final gravity and total volume in the fermenter).

      Mash conversion and pre-boil are so important in assessing mill settings and mash SOP but it's not easy in Beersmith.

      Total Brewhouse Efficiency is wildly dictated by how efficient the tank design and if you can accurately calculate final volume into the fermenter.

      We thought our mill and mash SOP was terrible only to find out the whirlpool design on the boil kettle leaves more wort behind than we calculated.

      Our efficiencies were fine UP TO knockout and transfer.

      While there is lots of paid programs out there and I really like the Beersmith style guidelines and ease of recipe creation- we use Brewer's Friend (online) on Chromebooks in the brewery to log and track the brews.

      Brewer's Friend is a little off on ABV.

      We still use both. Once a recipe is in Brewers Friend we can re-brew pretty simply.

      Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
      JC McDowell
      Bandit Brewing Co.- 3bbl brewery and growing
      Darby, MT- population 700
      OPENED Black Friday 2014!

      Comment


      • #4
        How important is pilot brewhouse equipment when scaling to 10bbl?

        Our production system will be a 10bbl steam. We are investigating a 2bbl pilot system. Is it important to have the pilot brewhouse be similar to the production for scaling? Will electric or direct fire scale well to the steam system? Are there other equipment or processing techniques that are critical to scaling?
        Any help is greatly appresiated! Thanks

        Comment


        • #5
          What is more important is having the actual numbers as measured.

          All of the programs mentioned are just simulations. You need to run a few batches through your system and have them measured at a lab. That way you will know what the numbers actually are. Then you can correct the simulations to reflect reality.

          In my last brewing job, I designed a beer in BeerSmith for 15 bbls. I adjusted the efficiency to reflect the OG/FG numbers we achieved. We moved to can production at a contract brewery that had a very complete lab. That allowed me to fine tune the numbers in BeerSmith to a greater degree.

          As an example for an IPA. On brew day: OG:16, EBC: 21, calculated IBU 115. End of Ferment: OE: 15.77, FG: 1.009, EBC 22, measured IBU:90.3. In Brite, after dry hopping and fining: EBC: 15.8, IBU 71.2

          So a calculated beer for 115 IBU actually turns out to be 71 IBU. A good lab and measurements are important to know what you are actually making.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by John Arcara View Post
            Is anyone using BeerSmith for a 10 or 20 BBL system? If so do you have any tips or tricks? If not, is there something better out there that we should be considering for recipe formulation and scaling?

            Thank you so much
            John
            I've been using Beersmith for years, from homebrewing to 1bbl nano batches. Now I use it for 15-20 bbl batches. The key as was already mentioned was to take measurements and results and adjust the efficiency, boil off, etc as you get more data on the bigger system. I have an old three vessel 20 bbl system, so my efficiency is about 76%. Start around an assumed of 75% and adjust as you get more brews and data in, that's what I did. Cheers

            Comment


            • #7
              I went from 1.5 BBL Electric to 10 BBL Steam with no software. Efficiency went from 65% to 94% so I lost a lot of color. The little electric has a more vigorous boil so I find my knock out/whrilpool IBUs a bit hard to scale. I used Brewtarget for a while but it's basically broken for whirlpool IBUs, although it was good for getting me close or doing porters/ales without many knockout IBUS (Once I got my efficiency numbers).

              Now I have Beersmith and some good numbers on my efficiency. I try to base all my numbers on kettle volume though. At the end of the day whatever I formulate goes onto a brew day spreadsheet with a "Suspected yield" of my target kettle volume. I use SG and adjust as required. (So if I get 1350L at 1.066 (1350x66) = 89100, and I want a SG of 1.046 it's 89100/46 it's 1936L in the kettle at knock out. If my recipe calls for a Kettle Volume of 1900, my hops would just be 1936/1900 so I would just multiply all my hops by 1.019. The AA's may need to be adjusted each day, especially the first few additions.

              I find at our mid 90's efficiency my grains bill varies from 19 HL yield with 275 KG for a 4.6% beer fermented with 05 to 16 HL yield with 335 KG for a 5.6% stout fermented with 04.
              Leigh Davison
              Head Brewer, Partner & Beer Alchemist @ Schoolhouse Brewery
              Windsor, Nova Scotia
              "The Beer with Class"

              Comment


              • #8
                I went from 1.5 BBL Electric to 10 BBL Steam with no software. Efficiency went from 65% to 94% so I lost a lot of color. The little electric has a more vigorous boil so I find my knock out/whrilpool IBUs a bit hard to scale. I used Brewtarget for a while but it's basically broken for whirlpool IBUs, although it was good for getting me close or doing porters/ales without many knockout IBUS (Once I got my efficiency numbers).

                Now I have Beersmith and some good numbers on my efficiency. I try to base all my numbers on kettle volume though. At the end of the day whatever I formulate goes onto a brew day spreadsheet with a "Suspected yield" of my target kettle volume. I use SG and adjust as required. (So if I get 1350L at 1.066 (1350x66) = 89100, and I want a SG of 1.046 it's 89100/46 it's 1936L in the kettle at knock out. If my recipe calls for a Kettle Volume of 1900, my hops would just be 1936/1900 so I would just multiply all my hops by 1.019. The AA's may need to be adjusted each day, especially the first few additions.

                I find at our mid 90's efficiency my grains bill varies from 19 HL yield with 275 KG for a 4.6% beer fermented with 05 to 16 HL yield with 335 KG for a 5.6% stout fermented with 04.
                Leigh Davison
                Head Brewer, Partner & Beer Alchemist @ Schoolhouse Brewery
                Windsor, Nova Scotia
                "The Beer with Class"

                Comment


                • #9
                  How did your scale up go? I'm currently scaling from a 3.5 (3.8) BBL to a 20 BBL. I'm assuming 80% efficiency (the same as our 3.5 BBL) and we haven't brewed anything yet on the 20 BBL.

                  Comment

                  Working...
                  X