Missing some brews in my batch.

I just bottled my first batch yesterday afternoon. I made Brewers Best American Amber. I followed all the instructions very carefully while making the wort. My OG reading was 1.045, my FG reading was 1.010. I let the brew sit in my primary for 19 days. I kept the beer around 66 degrees, although the first few days is was around 74 degrees. I ended up rigging up a system with water/ice packs to keep the temp down for the remaining 17 days of fermentation.

I went to bottle the beer yesterday, the batch calls for 53 beers. I bottled them up and only had 39 bottles filled before the brew ran out. I'm having a hard time figuring out why this is so low. A few people on Home Brew Talk forums say that I must have boiled off about a gallon or so while making the wort. However, I filled the primary up to the 5 gallon mark right before pitching the yeast after I cooled it down in ice. So essentially, when the primary fermentation started, it was at 5 gallons.

I want to start on my next batch of Kolsch, just want to see if I can do things a little better next time around.

Any idea why I would be missing 12-14 beers from the batch? Not sure if the beers will be any good or not, but I am planning on letting them sit for a few weeks in the bottles before trying. And yes they are 12oz bottles.

Thank you.

(128*5)/16=40

If you used 16oz bottles, you're not missing anything (but the trub).

EDIT: Nevermind, missed the part about your bottles.

Another try: How full did you fill your bottles? If you filled them to the top, you may have squeezed an extra 3-4 oz (maybe?) into them. Not to mention, overfilling them.

That's too much loss to be incidental stuff like trub loss, evaporation, or gravity tests. I have to think a measurement is off: either your starting volume, your volume per bottle, or your number of bottles. A case of beer doesn't just get up and stagger off.

djfriesen said:

That's too much loss to be incidental stuff like trub loss, evaporation, or gravity tests. I have to think a measurement is off: either your starting volume, your volume per bottle, or your number of bottles. A case of beer doesn't just get up and stagger off.

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How many gravity tests would it take to make that much volume?

Well my tube usually takes around 4 ounces max, so at least 32?

GinSlinger said:

(128*5)/16=40

If you used 16oz bottles, you're not missing anything (but the trub).

EDIT: Nevermind, missed the part about your bottles.

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I would still double check you don't have 16 oz bottles, just seems way too conincedental that it is basically spot on for the number of 16 oz bottles

eojnnamleppak said:

...However, I filled the primary up to the 5 gallon mark right before pitching the yeast after I cooled it down in ice. So essentially, when the primary fermentation started, it was at 5 gallons...

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djfriesen said:

That's too much loss to be incidental stuff like trub loss, evaporation, or gravity tests. I have to think a measurement is off: either your starting volume, your volume per bottle, or your number of bottles. A case of beer doesn't just get up and stagger off.

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I would be surprised if the bucket was more than 1 gallon off, so I would be betting on bottle size or number... did you happen to think the beer was actually pretty good straight out of the fermenter and end up drinking a dozen while bottling (I have done that, but only about 1 - 1.5 litres was drunk)

How compact was your trub and cake? if you think a half gallon of trub at the bottom of the bucket. that would account for some, over filling bottles, and samples could all have effected your outcome.

djfriesen said:

Well my tube usually takes around 4 ounces max, so at least 32?

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So, about one a day for OP?

Well it was in fermentation for 17 days, so about 2 a day. There really isn't a reason to do more than 3.

Ah, added 17 to 19, but it was part of the 19.

Well, I'm just throwing stuff out there til something sticks, but my money is on 16oz of beer in each bottle (even if they're 12ozers).

GinSlinger said:

Ah, added 17 to 19, but it was part of the 19.

Well, I'm just throwing stuff out there til something sticks, but my money is on 16oz of beer in each bottle (even if they're 12ozers).

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But how do you fit another 1/3 of a bottle into a full bottle
Hockey is probably on to it, if the beer is at the 5 gallon mark and there is a 1/2 gallon of trub and then you rack down to 1" (first timer nerves about getting yeast in the final beers )above that you will lose a fair bit of beer.

mattd2 said:

But how do you fit another 1/3 of a bottle into a full bottle

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My quick measure-estimate is that the difference between 1-1/2" headspace and 0" is roughly 2oz, but of course the shape of the bottle matters. Combine those 58ozs with the other possibilities, or not.

EDIT: To be clear, since the math works so well that this batch is broken up into 39 16oz servings, I'm struggling to make that work.