stoneyrok

Recipes 

Hi all,
So I moved to all grain and brewed a founders breakfast stout clone, a smash with cascade hops, and a red ale IPA. One thing seemingly obvious is there is a lot more trub loss with all grain, so I don't have my volumes correct. Ie: I just racked my red ale dry hopped tonight for the third time, to get the floating hops out. I will bottle this tomorrow, but I am down to like 3.5 gallons. I racked my breakfast stout once using a Cain and have about 4 gallons. The my smash racked and about 3.5 gal...

What shpuld I be doing with these volumes? Shpuld I mash out 7.5 gallons, boil down and ferment 6 gallons to rack it down to 4.5 to 5 gallons? I guess I expect a few cases 48 bottles per batch. I figure I will put the recipe in beer smith for 5 gallons, then ramp it up to 7.5, add the extra malt etc, then by the time it makes it through the primary, secondary, and to bottling I will have 5 gallons. Big question being... Are these 5 gallon recipes for 5 gallons but ends up 3.5 racking and trub or should we be using the 5 gallon recipe and sparge up to 7.5 gallons to end with 5? Whichever you do could seriously affect the recipe when you factor in trub, sediment, and volume loss.. Thoughts or suggestions are greatly welcomed!

rockytoptim

Recipes 

for 5 gal batch I shoot for 5.5 gal in the fermenter that way I end up with 5 gal after kegging. I usually only rack once as I don't use a secondary.

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stoneyrok

Recipes 

So, when your boil is over, and you have trub in the bottom of the boil pot, do you siphon the cooled wort to the primary leaving the trub and hops behind? This would lessen my trub amount, but I wonder if that trub and hops adds flavor when fermentation kicks off for those three days? If I separated before the ferment, then that might help my volumes if it won't lose flavor etc for the beer. Thanks so much for your input!

beerkrump

Recipes 

This may sound harsh, but stop all the @#$%ing racking!

Yes, as it has been mentioned, you should expect to lose about two quarts of beer to the yeast cake. But you're going nuts. A little yeast is not going to hurt anything and going straight to the bottling bucket from the primary fermented is just fine.

rockytoptim

Recipes 

For the last couple of brews I used ad 200 micron bag to hold my pellet hops so there is no trub left in the bottom of my kettle. I one pass through my plate chiller straight into the fermenter. I leave less than 2 cups of wort in the BK.

In the past I have dumped all trub/pellet hops into the fermenter and have had great brews. In my opinon the trub/hops aren't going to add any more flavor to the beer as all the bitter was done in the boil.

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DrawTap88

Recipes 

+1 to not racking so much.

No matter what you do, there's going to be some trub (and hop material if you add that to the boil without bagging them), in the bottom of your kettle. The thing you need to figure out is how much wort gets left behind with all that junk. Then you can figure out how big of a boil you need to get the desired 5-5.5 gallons in the fermentor.
(i.e. .5 gallon lost to trub/hot break/hop material. Shoot for 6.5 gallons pre-boil. Boil for an hour to get down to 5.5 or 5.75 gallons minus the .5 gallon of lost wort will get you 5 to 5.25 gallons in the fermentor.)

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stevedasleeve

Recipes 

I struggled a bit with this early on. Ultimately though I simply increased my boil volume and/or topped up with water (adjusting the recipe to accommodate.)

I also don't sweat having trub/hops sludge in the fermenter at all. I have found it makes not a bit of difference in the beer. I usually ferment 3 weeks and cool the fermented beer down to 35ish f for a week before kegging for very clear beer.

These are my current numbers, for an APA - 4 oz pellets in the boil FWIW:

Boil volume 7.5 gallons
Evaporation rate 10% (boil time 70 mins)
Lost Trub 0.5 gallons
Final volume 5.9 gallons

When I keg this I will end up with about 1.5 inches of beer above the yeast cake after filling all the way up for pretty clear beer in a few days. What do I do with the excess beer you might ask? I siphon it into a jug and drink it flat, mmm mmm good!

Mysticmead

Recipes 

+1 on not racking as much... it just isn't needed. +1 for using a hops bag. this cuts the amount of trub going to the fermentor. I have 5.5 gallons go into the fermentor, I keg 5 gallons with a small amount left over (enough to take a hydrometer sample)

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terrapinj

Recipes 

a lot of people (myself included now) dry hop in primary a couple weeks after fermentation is done and FG has stabilized

i just use a paint strainer over the end of the racking cane to filter out the hops when i rack to bottling bucket

wookiemofo

Recipes 

1) Get Beersmith
2) Calculate proper volumes for trub leave behind
3) End up with 5-5.5 gallons bottled
4) Profit (get drunk)

2b) Use a whirlpool method prior to siphoning