did i lose some beer?

i racked a batch of belgian ale to secondary about 1 1/2 weeks ago. its a 5 gallon batch, i used a 6.5 gal carboy. i realize that there would be some room left, but it is barely over 1/2 full. i cant imagine losing more than 1/2 gallon in the racking. so is the carboy over 6.5 gal? or did i lose some beer somehow?

Hard to tell, and can't really say! First, do you know how much was in your primary bucket? I am guessing not, because then you would know how much beer you had before racking to the secondary. I would hazard a guess that with the boil you lost more than you anticipated, and then after racking lost a little bit more. If you have a standard 6.5 gallon fermenter then it should at least be close to the slope near the top. I will show you a pic.

Or!!!!!!! You could have one of those nasty beer draining gnomes lurking in your house! They are hard to get rid of too!

This is a five gallon brew that ended up boiling down to about 4-41/4 gallons. You know what it actually looks half full!
Hope that helps!

actually that kind of looks like my carboy. it was at the 5 gal line in my primary, but when i racked it there was quite a bit in the bottom with all the dregs. thanks

Next time it is empty, measure a gallon at a time into it and mark with tap, a china pen or marker. Or you could take a stick and mark the levels.

Next time you brew you'll know how much beer you have and as important how much you lose in the boil and racking. Keep notes and you'll be able to scale up your brews or refine you methods to solve the lack of beer thing.

It's common to lose more to evaporation under certain conditions, and I know whole hops seem to soak it up too. You could take a SG reading and if it seems too high, add some sanitized water to top up.

Brewnurse -- I'm new to beermaking, so I have lots of questions. What is the 'box' that your carboy is in? Does it help you control temperature? I brew in my basement, and it's clean but 'cool'. I have a kit batch of Morgan's Wheat Beer working that should have finished 10 days ago, and it's still slowly fermenting. The SG is slo-o-owly dropping. Should be 25C, and it is 19-20C. (I'm h oping it will be OK!)