How to account for trub loss?

Hi,
my second batch will be bottled soon (4 weeks in primary -- no secondary), and I don't wanna screw up by putting the wrong weight of sugar. I've done a belgian witbier (Papazian's Who's in the garden grand cru) using WLP400 with no starter. The thing is, I only do 2.5 gallons batches. So, when I brew, I top off to 2.5 gallons.

Now, I know I can calculate the right amount of sugar here : http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html

But the problem is, I know I'll lose some due to 1) trub 2) well, it's hard to transfer everything from the fermenter to the bottling bucket, without transferring some trub.

How do we account for these loss? Because, there's a world of differences in the amount of priming sugar from 2.5 gallons to 2.0 gallons (I put 0.5 gallons lost because Jamil account for 0.5 gallons loss from the primary(5.5 gallons) to the real bottled quantity (5 gallons)).

Do I just aim for the middle ground(2.25 gallons / middle volume for the style) to be safe?

Well, I use 1 ounce priming sugar (by weight) per gallon. So, the most you'd be "off" if you lost .5 gallon is 1/2 ounce. That's quite a bit, but not catastrophic. If you plan on 2.25 gallons, I think that would be a safe bet. I don't think you'll lose 1/2 gallon- that's 20% of the total!

Thanks Yooperbrew, I guess I'll go this way (2.25 gallons / middle of range for volume).

Just to add some more info about my process, I do strain my wort before putting it in my fermenter. But there's still some loss due to incapacity of transferring everything and... well... settled yeast at the bottom.

Erythro73 said:

Thanks Yooperbrew, I guess I'll go this way (2.25 gallons / middle of range for volume).

Just to add some more info about my process, I do strain my wort before putting it in my fermenter. But there's still some loss due to incapacity of transferring everything and... well... settled yeast at the bottom.

Click to expand...

Well, sure, you'll lose some. But the yeast and trub compacts down pretty tightly, and you can siphon off of the yeast cake and get most of the beer. I don't strain my wort, and I usually only lose about .25-.50 gallon or so in a 5 gallon batch. Even the hops settle down into the trub.

YooperBrew said:

Well, sure, you'll lose some. But the yeast and trub compacts down pretty tightly, and you can siphon off of the yeast cake and get most of the beer. I don't strain my wort, and I usually only lose about .25-.50 gallon or so in a 5 gallon batch. Even the hops settle down into the trub.

Click to expand...

Thank you . I'll RDWHAHB and approximate it to 2.25 gallons. That's approximately what I see at the bottom -- a little bit less than 1 liter (0.25 gallon) (my primary is somewhat a little bit transparent).

Thank you again for your time!

I tilt the bucket/carboy toward the racking cane to get as much as possible.
Also I use a cane cap to keep the racking cane just above the bottom.
There's usually only about a cup of yeast in my primary since I leave all the trub in the kettle.
Total loss is maybe a pint from primary to secondary to keg.