Cold steep advice

[Banjo-guy]

I'm trying my first brew with cold steeped grains today and have a few questions about how to account for the extra volume that I will have when I add the cold steeped fluid to the boil.
I still have to mash my base malt and carmel malt for 60 minutes. Because the chocolate and black malts won't be in the mash I'm planning on calculating my mash water without them. I am going to add the cold steeped fluid with 15 minutes left. I cold steeped about 1 lb of the dark grains in 2 quarts of water. After absorption I'm not sure how much fluid I will have but I'm guessing at 1.5 quarts. ( I'll measure it after the cold steep)
Should I start the boil with 1.5 quarts less volume because I'm adding it back in at the end?
Won't this throw off my gravity at the end of the boil?

It occurs to me that I might have already adjusted for the cold steep volume because I figured the mash water without the cold steeped grains.

[jimjohson]

when philm00x and I did a partial sour mash ag recipe. we just made a recipe with all grains included, but actually had 2 separate mashes, 18 hours apart. brought them back together for the sparge. the water worked out right

[mtsoxfan]

Can't you drain and measure the cold steep first and then calculate?

[teutonic terror]

Steeped grains should not affect your gravity at all since they add no fermentables to your mash.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/can-onl ... ed-103379/

http://beersmith.com/blog/2009/03/22/st ... r-brewing/

As far as your boil goes, I would just go with your full volume boil
add the steeped elixir at the 10-15 minute mark! That will give it enough
time to sterilize it.
My 2 cents and good luck!

[jimjohson]

Can't you drain and measure the cold steep first and then calculate?

I measure before the steep then I just deduct the amount of water I steep in from the water needed. if your using say 3.5 gal to start the boil I would use (just as an example) .5 gal of that to steep, or what ever amount of water you used to steep in and squeeze the grain won't hurt and you'll get back most of the water. other than a water volume question tt is right, little if any fermentable sugars are released in a steep, color and non fermentables that go to body(mouth feel) and head retention

[Banjo-guy]

The numbers are so different when I put them into Beer Smith and when I use Simple BIAB Calculator that I went with the much lower mash volume of 3.5 from Simple biab.
Beer Smith had it at almost 6 gallons.

If I need to raise the gravity I'll add dme.
I can't seem to dial in my equipment on Beer Smith. I don't trust the volumes that I get from that program.

[haerbob3]

An interesting read on equipment profiles for Beersmith:
BeerSmith2 'Equipment Profile' set-up for new all-grainers
one thing that I changed that really helped was setting the dead-spaces == 0

[jimjohson]

BeerSmith had my water level (boil off) dead on by second batch

[Banjo-guy]

I've done three all grain batches and today's was the first one that didn't have a problem. I think I'm zoning in on what I need to input for the figures asked for in Beer Smith. Part of my problem is that I've used different equipment and batch sizes for each brew. I'm going to brew a 5 gallon batch next week and will be using a different set up than I used today. I shouldn't be surprised that the numbers are off.

Today went well and I think the next time that I brew a 2.5 batch I will be very close to getting the correct volumes.

My next brew is outside on a a Propane burner and is 5 gallons so I'll be using the equipment profile from my last 5 gallon batch.
I'm usually going to brew a 2.5 gallon batch. I wanted to see if I could brew all grain inside on my glass top stove and I'm happy to say that I was able to do it with no problem.

[haerbob3]

You can set up different equipment profiles in Beersmith and use the appropriate profile for each equipment set-up.
equipment profiles in Beersmith
and another

[Banjo-guy]

Yes I know I can setup different profiles. I have been setting up three separate profiles. It takes a few brews to get the numbers set. I think they say 5 brews to really dial everything in.

I've been using a different profile for every other brew. It's taking a while to get more than 2 brews in a row on the different set ups.
I'm doing 1 gallon test batches, 2.5 gallon ,and 5 gallon brews.

I'll be doing 2.5 gallon for almost everything from now on. If I make something that really goes over than I'll make 5 gallons. I can barely drink 2.5 gallons.