What's your opinion?
 

I'm curious as to what people prefer when doing their boil. Would you rather hit your gravity numbers or your desired volume?

Both.

But if forced to choose, I will take gravity numbers.

I'd rather have a better flavor and body than an extra beer or two. :mug:

Both. That's why I take pre-boil readings. (And so simple to adjust!)

But if I had no extra DME or water, I would take the gravity over the volume.

It depends on the beer really...I mean if I'm planning to do a beer that's supposed to come out at 1.082 and it comes out 1.060, and I know that it will ferment down to 6.5% ABV anyway, then I might just accept the beer for what it is and move on. If I'm supposed to get 1.060 and I hit 1.030, I would rather reduce the volume and bump the gravity up. Also, it depends on the flavor of the beer too. If I need to add some DME/LME to bump the gravity, but it's by a huge margin, I'd rather just boil off some more and meet it half way instead of relying completely on a boil or extract. Extract makes really good beers, don't get me wrong, but if I'm doing all grain I don't want half of my fermentable sugar to come from extract unless it's an absolute emergency, so I would rather boil it down some. A really good practice is to shoot for greater volume at less efficiency, though. Make a batch for 5.5 or 6 gallons instead of 5. Take your previous efficiency and reduce it by 5 or 10%. As you get better, close your margin.

I'd rather hit gravity. I have started planning larger brews just in case my volume ends up too low. The extra beer does not go to waste.

However, in the end, unless something goes terribly wrong, you'll still get beer.

I go for volume.

^this^

^ this even more^

exactly, if you miss your gravity, the beer will be different than planned, if you miss your volume, you'll have less of the planned beer. i'd rather have a gallon of the beer i intended to make than five gallons of something else.

I pick/create a recipe based on a desired result. If I miss gravity, I will not get the beer I intended. If I miss volume, I just won't get the amount of beer I intended. I would rather get the beer I want and less of it, than more of a beer I wasn't planning on.