In the recipe editor, the water volumes tab 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 tab 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.
The water volume tab is very similar to the Water Needed Tool available as a standalone tool.
Displaying the Water Volumes Tab
| o | Open a recipe by double clicking on it |
| o | Click on the Water Volumes tab a the top of the recipe window to view/edit your recipe water volume details |
| o | If you want to permanently change aspects of your equipment it is important that you go to the Equipment Profile and edit your settings there, as changing them in a recipe will only alter the settings for that one recipe. |