how many gallons of wort to get to 5 gallons of beer?

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haeffnkr

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Hello,

I searched on "volume" in this forum but did not find my answer, sorry if I missed it.

Basically as the title says...
How many gallons of cooled wort do you/I need to end up with 5 gallons of beer in a corny?

I am doing BIAB and my last brew (#2 of my career :) ) ended up with 5.6 gallons of cooled wort, my target...and then I started thinking that was not enough.

So I lost a quart or so in the kettle and not sure how much is in the carboy bubbling away...5 +/- gallons I assume.
Then I will lose another couple quart or more to yeast and trub when I siphone it off to the keg.

So I will end up with 4.25 gallons in the keg?

What are you experiences?

thanks Kevin
 
I shoot for around 5 gallons in the keg. 5.5 gallons in the fermenter. 5.75 gallons in the kettle post boil. 6.75 gallons (average) in the kettle pre-boil.
 
+1 to maffewl...

I would think of it in the same manner, but keep in mind that everyone's brewhouse is going to be different. Sometimes there will be big differences, and other times there won't be much variation.

Try working backward from the keg:

Keg - 5 gals
Fermenter - 5.5 gals
End of boil - 6 to 6.5 gals
Beginning of boil - 7.5 - 8 gals

Why?

Keg - 5 gals
Fermenter - you'll leave about .5 gals of yeast and some trub behind
End of boil - you'll leave about .5 to 1 gal of trub and break material behind
Beginning of boil - you'll boil off 1 - 1.5 gals (depending on the boil length)

There will be some other things to consider, like:

Boil Time: a longer boil will boil off more of your wort. Ball park about 1 gal / hr.
Dry Hoppin: the hops will absorb more of your beer. Ball park another .25 gal, but this varies based on whole or pellet hops and the amount used.
Secondary: if you use a secondary you will leave more yeast and beer behind. I would estimate maybe another .1 - .25 gals.
Other: type of boil kettle, how rigorous the boil is, wort shrinkage, altitude, etc.

Hope that helps.
 
I boil about 7 gallons and get 5.25 to 6 gallons. I am still working on getting a consistent volume post boil.
 
Thanks for the responses... basically you all seem to be saying what I am thinking...I need more wort.

I need about 9 gallons of water in my keggle (I started last time with 8.2)
I will boil off some and the grain will hold some
I need about 6-6.5 gallons cooled wort in my keggle.
I need about 5.5-6 gallons in the fermenter.
To end up with 5 gallons of beer in a corny.

I was thinking more than .5 gallon of yeast/trub would be left behind in the fermenter.

The tastybrew calculator seems to do a good job of setting my recipe up and allowing volume tweaks to get me to the needed volume of OG wort.

Kevin
 
I shoot for 5.5 gallon batches. That gives me 5 in the keg after trub and transfers

This. If you lose more than .5 gallons racking two times, you need to practice racking more.

With a steady hand and an auto siphon I can get all but the last 1/4" of beer off the yeast cake/trub.

And if you're kegging, just do a long primary, and rack directly to keg. Skip the secondary because anything that settles out in the keg, you'll be able to dump with the first glass you pour.
 
I'm still trying to figure out my boil off in my new pot. This last BIAB I did I lost almost 2 gallons to boil off in a 60 minute boil. I ended up with exactly 5 gallons in my primary but will lose quite a bit when I transfer to secondary, maybe .5 gallon, because of the amount of trub in the bottom of my primary. So I'll end up with a little less than 4.5 gallons in my keg.
 
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