What method am I actually using? Beersmith question

[Manowarfan1]

Howdy borg - as I try to dial in my BeerSmith software I am wondering about what "type" of mashing I am doing. Right now I have two 15 quart aluminum stock pots, I use a 5gal paint strainer bag to hold the grains and use the "preheated and turned off oven" for mashing. Then I rinse/sparge with a gallon or so of water from another pot and do some dunking etc.
I also have a 32 quart aluminum pot of the same variety that I want to start using, assuming the electric stove can handle it.

On Beersmith, i could choose from BIAB, or various tupes of mash and sparge methods. Question is what exacgtly am I doing lol. It seems to me that it is a combination of methods so I am not sure which one to choose to allow me to start doing more active management of the brews instead of just being reactionary and recording info after the fact. "Oops, missed my FG by X, guess my abv is now x.X% - I want to get this stuff dialed in so I can consistently replicate what I do right (surprisingly a lot of my brews are really good) and identify and eliminate mistakes or correct them beforehand.

Anyone doing something similar? What methods do you put in? Any advice would be greatly appreciated and toasted many times while sampling the results
Cheers
jeff

[philm00x]

I use the 3 gallon extract profile since that's the size of my pot, but I do BIAB all grain brewing, and then use the single infusion, light body, batch sparge profile. In the mash, however, I edit the mash thickness from the default 1.25 qt per lb to 1.5 qt per lb. I've been hitting my OG every time using these settings. Took me a couple of batches to find these settings to be the ones that match best. I guess you can create your own settings and then record the results, and edit the settings accordingly with the results so you get what the program predicts.

[Manowarfan1]

Thanks Phil I will try using those as a default (well may keep using 4 gallon for equip size as the 15 qt are closer to 4 gallon than 3 gallon) but will try the other settings you refer to and see if my #s hit.

[philm00x]

I follow the sparge steps that the single infusion, light body, batch sparge profile gives me. Also, make sure to check your water volume numbers. I try to do full volume mash and boil, so for kettle top off, I put 0. If I have a lot of grain (more than 4 lbs), I'll put a 1 or 2 gallon top off, and then it'll change the mash water volumes. Rinse the grain bag with the volumes stated in the steps (usually 2 step rinse, 1st step with little water like 0.25 gallon, then 2nd step with a lot more water like a gallon or so). The pre-boil volume should be pretty spot on with calculations, and then post boil, you should be close to your numbers too. If when you pour into the fermenter, it's slightly short of the mark you're looking for, just top off. It might change the gravity by a point or two, but even after, I'm usually pretty spot on or maybe a point or two over the OG, which is nice.