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Water Tab

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The water tab is a new feature added in BeerSmith 3.  It lets you build and adjust water profiles directly in the recipe builder. It incorporates features previously in the separate Water Profile tool.

 

In the water tab, you can use the top Water Profile Section to select a base water profile to use for brewing.  You can use an existing water profile or create your own from a local water report. Note that you can also blend water profiles by adding different volumes of water such as distilled and your local water.  The lines below the water profile section show your total water volume and also calculated water profile for the waters used.

 

Below that, the Mash Water Agents show all water ingredients used to adjust your water profile.  BeerSmith supports the basic six agents: Gypsum, Epsom Sale, Calcium Chloride, Baking Soda and Chalk.  Below that it shows the new Adjusted water profile based on the base profile plus your additions.  The Don't Include Waqter Agents box lets you exclude the water adjustments - this covers the cases where these adjustments may have been included as part of the base water profile selected.

 

The Match a Target Profile button lets you match a water profile you select and calculates the water additions needed to match that profile.  It does a least squares fit to come as close as possible to the target.  Note that you can now exclude gypsum if desired as a water agent.

 

Finally the water analysis section shows the final water analysis for the adjusted water profile.

 

Also at the top there is a Detailed Water Volumes button that shows the old water volume tab.  It shows the various water volumes associated with the steps in your brewing process.  These include the mash, boil and fermentation and bottling.  When brewing, this helps you plan and track your water usage, and also adjust many equipment settings if they do not match this particular batch of beer.

 

This dialog can be very useful if you are trying to get your volumes for a given equipment profile correct, as it basically tracks the volumes used in brewing.  BeerSmith uses a system where it starts with the batch volume (into fermenter) and then works backwards using various losses to calculate the boil volume.  Next it estimates the water in the mash based on your grain usage and water/grain ratio in the mash profile and bases the sparge water on the additional water needed to reach the target boil volume.

 

 

Displaying the Water Tab

oOpen a recipe by double clicking on it
oClick on the Water tab a the top of the recipe window to view/edit your recipe water volume details