5 Gallon Batch - Do You Upsize for Loss?

When building a 5 gallon recipe (or 10 gallon), do you upsize the target size to account for loss?

Do you target 5.25 gallons as the batch size to get somewhere near 5 gallons in the fermenter?

I've been sizing my recipes for 5.25 gallons and typically use a 1500 to 1800 ML starter.

I am curious what others are doing.

When puchasing kits, the batch is always 5 gallons, no more. This means less into the fermenter due to loss.

What do you do?

I do 6 gallon batches and fill a keg and a few bottles, depending on how much loss happens from hops/trub. When I want two kegs I do 11 gallons.

I target 5 to 5.25 gallons going into the fermentor, and use Beersmith to calculate my boil volume accordingly. This usually gives me 4.75 to 5 gallons going into the keg.

If I am going to secondary, I make 5.5 gallon batches (I tend to lose half a gallon to trub). If I'm not going to secondary, I don't bother.

If you want a 5.5 gallon batch, just add a little bit of DME. Or just work on getting excellent efficiency.

Yes. 5.5 end of boil ~ 5 in the keg.

So is your target size 5.5 gallons or 5? I'm talking about brewing software.

5.5. You have 5.5 gallons of beer when all is said and done, but half a gallon of it is dormant yeast, proteins, spent hops, etc that you don't want in your keg/carboy.

5.5 including starter which means that I calculate at 5.25 and end up right at 5.

I target 5.5 using my brewing calculator. I'll end up with 5.5 going into the fermenter, and come away with ~5 gallons of clean beer in the keg.

I target 5.5 gallons to account for loss during racking, dryhopping, ect.

I do the same as the above. I expect to lose at least two quarts to trub, hops, etc. and upscale to accommodate.

I successfully use the Jamil method of designing a recipe to 6 gallons, leaving 0.5 in the kettle and 0.5 in the fermentor to transfer clear beer to keg.

PseudoChef said:

I successfully use the Jamil method of designing a recipe to 6 gallons, leaving 0.5 in the kettle and 0.5 in the fermentor to transfer clear beer to keg.

Click to expand...

winner winner chicken dinner.


_

PseudoChef said:

I successfully use the Jamil method of designing a recipe to 6 gallons, leaving 0.5 in the kettle and 0.5 in the fermentor to transfer clear beer to keg.

Click to expand...

I do the exact same thing, except target 5.5 gallons. Which makes it different, actually.

7.5-8 gallon boils = (for me) 6.75 gallons at the end of the boil which = 5.75-6 gallons in the fermenter which = 5 gallons in the keg.

These volumes allow for pretty clear beer since I lose a lot of the hot/cold break and yeast etc. The fact that I am a hop head so there is a ton of hops sludge and dry hop material is associated to these figures!

I aim for 6 and if I have any left over I can fill 1-gallon jugs.

PseudoChef - is Jamil's recipe creation rules posted somewhere?

I'm brewing a double IPA saturday. Hopville . "Pliny style (2011-12-06 version)" Imperial IPA Recipe

due to the large amount of hops, I will do an 8 gallon boil, leaving me with about 6.5 afterwards. I will cool this wort. Then when I remove the hop bag, i expect to lose about .5 gallons of wort. I will leave .5 in the kettle and siphon approximately 5.5 gal to the bucket and then 5 to the keg.

I am using an 80qt stockpot that is about 19" diameter and 16" tall, so I have a higher evaporation rate as well as higher trub loss due to my larger surface area. 1 gallon is like 1cm high in my pot .

I've never used the pot before, so this weekend will allow me to get a grip on my numbers.

I often make just 5 (or whatever the recipe calls for, if I'm using a recipe), but ultimately... whatever I want.

I mean, 5 gallons is really just an arbitrary amount anyways. I guess I don't see the "need" to end up with exactly that much. It's easiest for me to just use the calibrated sight gauge on my Blichmann kettle to end up with a post-boil volume of *exactly* 5 gallons in order to maintain precision and accuracy, so that's what I go by. When it comes time to bottle, I just bottle as much as I can... the beer isn't going to be changed by altering that particular volume on the fly.

I guess if you're kegging, I can see the point in shooting for 5 gallons out of the fermentor. But if you're bottling, and going to the trouble of scaling a recipe, why not design it to end up with 5.5 or 6 (or whatever) gallons? It makes just as much sense as 5 for most bottlers... chances are your system can probably accommodate at least another half-gallon or gallon, and it means more beer for the same amount of work!

Brewing software should have fields for pre, post, pitching, and finished volumes.

I keg and prefer to have as much as possible. My last batch, a Rogue Shakespeare Stout, a 5 gallon batch (BYO recipe) is about 4.5 to 4.75 gallons now. It's a shame