I am putting together an all grain recipe on BeerSmith for a Barley Wine. I have entered every ingredient except the yeast into the software and the estimated ABV without the yeast is10%, which is where I want it. Now comes the “scratch my head” issue. When I enter the yeast into the recipe it drops the estimated ABV down to 8%.
What am I failing to understand?? I don’t recall ever noticing this in other recipes I’ve made.
Help me understand!
I might add that the SG is 1.111
It’s obviously assuming attenuation based on yeast. A faulty thing to do. Never trust a software FG estimate. That’s what it’s doing to get ABV.
FG is 1.037 w/o addition of yeast and 1.053 with yeast! I’m confused. Should I just ignore the software estimates? I’m thinking so
Ok, BS is listing alcohol tolerance for WLP066 at 8% and White Labs has it listed as 5-10%. Thanks Denny!
I went into BS profile settings for WLP066 and changed the tolerance to 10%. It now has my ABV at the 10% I designed for and It also changed the estimated FG lower.
Just ignore that part of the software. It’s obviously only looking at yeast, when there are other factors involved, also.
Did you set a mash profile? You’ll get somthing a little more accurate if you plug in your mash temps.
Yes, it’s one of the first things I do when entering a new recipe. I think the issue was how BeerSmith had the max ABV tolerance of WLP066 listed at 8%. White Labs has it listed at 5-10% and so when I changed the max ABV in BS it corrected it. Obviously I won’t truly know until I make the beer.