How much water to fill and hops

Hi
I'm making my first batch of beer today. I have two questions....Do I need to put hops that are in pellet form in a sock when I boil them and how much water do I put in my Better Bottle carboy fermentor after I put the wort in there? (What is 5 gallons on this thing, up to the last line, bottom or top of it)? Thanks for the help.

shoemaker27 said:

Hi
I'm making my first batch of beer today. I have two questions....Do I need to put hops that are in pellet form in a sock when I boil them and how much water do I put in my Better Bottle carboy fermentor after I put the wort in there? (What is 5 gallons on this thing, up to the last line, bottom or top of it)? Thanks for the help.

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Hi! Welcome to the forum.

I don't use hops sock, but many others do. Just make sure that if you do, the hops aren't packed tightly, so that the wort can easily fully contact the hops. You want them "loose" in there. I just throw them in, and they kind of disintegrate.

Do you have a 6 gallon Better bottle? If it's a 5 gallon BB, it's not big enough because you need some headspace in there, to allow for the krausen (foam) at the top. I use an "ale pail" bucket for fermentation. If you have a 6 gallon BB, you might be fine. The best way to know where 5 gallon comes up is to fill it, one gallon at a time, with water and mark it accordingly.

Thanks for the response, yes I forgot to mention it is a 6 gallon BB

I measured out 4, 5, 5 1/2, and 6 gallons with know measuring devices (a marked pitcher to get to those volumes) and marked each on the outside of my carboys.