nyer

Recipes 

For the last several months I have had a problem with the amount of beer I end up with. I usually get 4 to 4.5 gallons after making a batch. I thought it had something to do with extreme boil off due to brewing outside in the winter.

I'm brewing Edworts pale ale this morning and noticed that when I put 5 gallons of water into my pot it didn't measure up to the 5 gallon mark I made on it. When I started having this problem I bought a true brew ferm bucket that has the 2 gal to 5 gal marks on the side so that I could easily and accurately measure my water. I took a known 1 gallon container and filled the bucket 1/2 gallon at a time and discovered that it's off by 1/2 gallon, 5 gallons is really 4.5 gallons and it's short 1/2 gallon from 2 to 5 gallons. I'm pissed, I probably did 6 brews using this thing and I had efficiency problems and low yield on every one. I re-marked the bucket correctly and I plan on contacting true brew so they can fix the problem.

MMW

Recipes 

Thanks for the tip. I'll be checking mine when I bottle next weekend.

anemic

Recipes 

I use a graduated plastic rubbermaid pitcher to measure water. I view the bucket marks as reference only.

SpanishCastleAle

Recipes 

I have True Brew fermenting and bottling buckets and mine aren't accurate either. Mine is actually very close @ 5 gal. but at 4 gal. it's off by quite a bit.

__________________
Early brewers were primarily women, mostly because it was deemed a woman's job. Mesopotamian men, of some 3,800 years ago, were obviously complete assclowns and had yet to realize the pleasure of brewing beer.- Beer Advocate

mmc1

Recipes 

I have an Ale Pail that's off by a 1/2 gal as well.

Homercidal

Recipes 

Dammit. I need to check my Ale Pail now. I always wondered, but figured that they people making it would be smart enough to at least get this right!

I wonder if they mark several different types of buckets using the same equipment and only calibrated the markings for one of them. Using on a different bucket might make it not work out right.

buzzkill

Recipes 

mine is off too,but I know its off and used the same 'off' readings to mark all my stuff. So it all works out. I marked it all before I knew it was off.

Jenks829

Recipes 

Good eye...... I also have the True Brew Kit and after reading this post, I checked mine the next time bottled and sure enough, the readings were inaccurate. Off by approximately 0.5 gallons. Thanks for finding this.

__________________
On Deck: Peanut Butter Stout (experimental), Honey or Mead Porter, Belgian Noel, IPA, Hefeweizen, American Pale Ale

Primary: English Mild, Dunkleweizen

Secondary: Russian Imperial Stout

Aging in bottle:

Drinking: Apfelwein

Munsoned

Recipes 

I've only used the bucket I have for Apfelwein/Ciders, which takes the whole "measuring" issue off the table since I'm just pouring in gallons of apple juice directly. All of my beers go into carboys. No real reason for this, just ended up doing it that way. Guess I was lucky...

__________________
___________________________
“While the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats.” - Mark Twain

Arkador

Recipes 

I added water to mine .5gal at a time, and added my own mark to each of my fermenters, so that I have no question about the volume.