How did I miss my Volume??!!

seriously I made a 5 gallon batch of witbier, never have a problem with it before, at the end of the boil, i racked to my carboy to find only 2.5 gallons!! wtf?! I looked over my water additions to the mash plus sparge was 7 gallons which should have left me with plenty after draining to the kettle for boil off.

anyways, I'm sure I miss measure something going in to the mash tun. So to correct I had a half pound of DME i use for yeast starters, and boiled up 2.5 gallons of that. the OG was 1.070, added the dme and it was 1.050. I'm not to terribly upset with the fix I came up with...

My concern is that the air lock smells like dme (bleh) and I'm wondering if the small boil volume didn't capture enough orange peel (13 minutes) can you "dry hop" orange peels?

I have used 1 oz of zest from a naval orange and soaked it in ~50mL of vodka for 8 hours. I then added the whole concoction to the secondary. Beer came out very good, perhaps a bit too orange'y.. maybe try .75 oz
I also added .7oz of crushed coriander in with the vodka and the zest.

I'd just write it down in the notes to increase the time of boil. But I think you are in the usual range for the orange peel. It would be best to let it go and see if you like it the way it is.

thetmaxx said:

seriously I made a 5 gallon batch of witbier, never have a problem with it before, at the end of the boil, i racked to my carboy to find only 2.5 gallons!! wtf?! I looked over my water additions to the mash plus sparge was 7 gallons which should have left me with plenty after draining to the kettle for boil off.

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7 gallons isn't enough for a 5g batch. You need nearly 9 gallons, especially with a wheat beer. There is usually more absorption there with my wits.

You'll absorb ~2g. in the grain in a 10lb. grain bill. With 7g. total water that takes you down to 5g not counting boil off and trub loss, hop absorption, etc.

You should have mashed with about 3g. of water, run off 1g. from the mash, sparged with over 5g. in order to start the boil with over 6g total. Boiloff, hop absorption, trub loss, puts just about 5g. in the fermenter.

its all beersmith's fault... LOL i also was stupid and went with the exact recomended sparge, usually i just prepare enough water and go til i'm full. really off brew day, probably because i wasn't drunk enough...

thetmaxx said:

its all beersmith's fault... LOL i also was stupid and went with the exact recomended sparge, usually i just prepare enough water and go til i'm full. really off brew day, probably because i wasn't drunk enough...

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Easy rule to follow that won't lead you wrong:

1.25qts/lb. for mash.
Heat enough sparge as at least as many gallons as batch size, ie. 5g. for 5g batch, 10g for 10g batch, etc.
Sparge until you hit preboil, which is usually about 1.5-2g. more than batch size for 60m boil.

Mark your mash paddle or kettle or get a sight-glass. This will help a lot. You won't come out low/high if you fill to preboil.