40 bottles out of 5 gallons?!

I got the Octane IPA kit from midwest and it indicates that i should get something like 48-54 beers from the 5 gallon batch. Well i bottled and only got 40?!

It should be noted that when i first brewed the gravity was high although i dont think i stired well and/or the wort may have been still hot. I did NOT filter the wort so the primary & secondary both had quite a bit of sedement that i ended up with. I did top the primary off with some bottled water when i noticed that it was only around the 4 1/2 gallon mark (assume from loss of water from when i was boiling.

This is my first brew- is it going to taste "off"? The final gravity was 1.020 although the kit noted it should be 1.012-1.018 so slighly high. Also will 5 gallons worth of priming sugar in 40 bottles make the beer overcarbonated?

Any insight would help. Thanks guys!

1. It's common to lose 1/2 gallon or more to "trub loss" which is beer left in the hop and protein sludge in the bottom of your brewing bucket. An IPA has even more trub loss since it has so many more hops than most ales.

2. Most kits require you to top off with sanitized or bottled water to the 5.0 gallon mark. If you only had 4.5 gallons into the fermenter than I'm surprised you got 40 bottles.

3. How long did you let it ferment? Most of those kits falsely say it should be done in 7-10 days. In reality it may take up to 3 weeks to fully finish fermenting and 90% of brewers will recommend at least a 3 week fermentation. If it's only at 1.020 now then either there was an issue with temp control during fermentation or it still needs time to finish out. I recently brewed a brown ale and it took 23 days to hit my final gravity number!

Assuming you're talking 12oz bottles, 40 of them amounts to about 3.75 gallons.

Some racking loss is normally incurred between stages depending on how conservative or liberal you were with the process but it sounds like the bulk of the miss is due to being short on volume post boil.

Out of the last "5 gallon" batch I bottled (instructions were to top off, if necessary, to slightly over 5 gallons), I ended up with ~4.8gal total in the bottles (13x 12oz + 12x 22oz + 6x 33oz), which roughly corresponds to the 1/2 gallon loss Jayhem mentioned considering I started with a bit over 5 gallons.

Beestin said:

I got the Octane IPA kit from midwest and it indicates that i should get something like 48-54 beers from the 5 gallon batch. Well i bottled and only got 40?!

It should be noted that when i first brewed the gravity was high although i dont think i stired well and/or the wort may have been still hot. I did NOT filter the wort so the primary & secondary both had quite a bit of sedement that i ended up with. I did top the primary off with some bottled water when i noticed that it was only around the 4 1/2 gallon mark (assume from loss of water from when i was boiling.

This is my first brew- is it going to taste "off"? The final gravity was 1.020 although the kit noted it should be 1.012-1.018 so slighly high. Also will 5 gallons worth of priming sugar in 40 bottles make the beer overcarbonated?

Any insight would help. Thanks guys!

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Relax Don't Worry. I am guessing your IPA SG was >= 1.065 if so then 1.020 is a fine Final Gravity IMO. It might compliment the hop bill and bitterness rather well. I think you'll end up with good beer as long as fermentation temperature was appropriate for the Yeast.

When I started doing extract brews and recipes for 5 gallons I was getting about 4 gallons going into bottles. I was always shy of 2 cases by a six pack. I was also doing a secondary. I think there is a pretty big loss going from Kettle to Primary to Secondary to Bottle Bucket to Bottles. That is four places to lose beer. I think the best thing you could do to get close to 5 gals is to forget about the secondary and plan for a 5.5 gal recipe.

To make topping off to the right final volume easy next time, measure out 5 gallons of water one at a time into your fermentation vessel and mark the fill lines on the outside of the vessel with a permanent marker at each of the water levels. Super easy to top off by eye to your 5-gallon mark next time.

Have you considered that evil gnomes may be stealing bear out of your primary? Analysis Here

Did you dry hop? Dry hopping sucks up a lot of beer.

Beestin said:

I got the Octane IPA kit from midwest and it indicates that i should get something like 48-54 beers from the 5 gallon batch. Well i bottled and only got 40?!

It should be noted that when i first brewed the gravity was high although i dont think i stired well and/or the wort may have been still hot. I did NOT filter the wort so the primary & secondary both had quite a bit of sedement that i ended up with. I did top the primary off with some bottled water when i noticed that it was only around the 4 1/2 gallon mark (assume from loss of water from when i was boiling.

This is my first brew- is it going to taste "off"? The final gravity was 1.020 although the kit noted it should be 1.012-1.018 so slighly high. Also will 5 gallons worth of priming sugar in 40 bottles make the beer overcarbonated?

Any insight would help. Thanks guys!

Click to expand...

54 is a strange prediction from the kit - you'd have to take more than 5 gallon OUT of the fermenter to get 54 bottles with appropriate headspace. 45-50 is normal depending on trub loss and how many samples you take for hydro readings. It's best to top to 5 gallons going into the fermenter. That way you'll come out with around 48 bottles with a .5 loss to trub.

I did have a low amt to begin with d/t the boil i assume but added bottled watered to get to "almost" 5 gallons (from what i could tell on the outside of the bucket). There was at least 1-1.5inches of trub in botht he primary and secondary. I did also dry hop. I was pretty conservative when racking to leave behind the trub so did leave a little wort/beer in the prim/second but not all that much. Could 3inches of trub total and a little low on the water be the difference? My OG was 1.080 but i belive this to be an incorrect reading after some questionning on here d/t not stirring, possibly not letting it cool before taking a reading, etc. So from 1.080 (possibly wrong) down to 1.020 is where i came in. I let the primary sit for 2 weeks. After 2 days the fermentation was going crazy. 3-4 days later it all but finished. I let it sit another 8 days or whatever is left of the 2 weeks and i didn't see any bubbling going on. Once racked to the secondary i didn't see a single bubble from the airlock the 2 weeks it was in the secondary although i wasn't watching it very closesly as it was in the basement.

Will having my 5 gallons worth of priming sugar in 40 bottles create a problem?

HoppyDaze said:

Have you considered that evil gnomes may be stealing bear out of your primary? Analysis Here

Click to expand...

I think this aproach needs to be considered

Relax. Don't Worry. Have a homebrew.

Since this is your first batch, find something good from the store and repeat above.