Topping off

If for what ever reason you come up short on the secondary is it wise to top off to 5 gallons with cooled boiled water?

Some do, some don't. Won't hurt anything, it'll just slightly dilute your beer, of course. I've never bothered, I may in the future because I'm sick of "5 gallon" recipes netting me only like 45 bottles.

I don't think it hurts.

EDIT. Whoops... thought you ment Primary

I will top off the primary to 5 gal but I never top off the secondary.

Also,
shoot for 5 1/2 gallon batches when you brew to compensate for losses due to trub, yeast etc...

I might if the OG is too high. Most of the time, no.

If you are the type that frets over hitting target gravity, hitting batch size exactly and you always calibrate your hydrometer exactly to temperature...then you probably should... :cross:
Marc.

You don't come up short on secondary, it is what it is. If an extract brewer and throw everthing into primary than you make adjustments to make your mark. Any loses after that is the cost of doing business. Using a full boil volume you can make adjustments in the kettle before transfering to primary. Adding water to secondary to keep volume up just dilutes your projected results and will not yeild consistancy from recipe to recipe. When I first started brewing and was told it was a 5 gallon batch then that's what I expected to be bottled. It took me forever to except my final volume would be less than that and had many bottles containing sediment that should have been left behind.

If still determined to top off secondary, knock yourself out. If final volume makes you happy, I no doubt understand. I still refuse to waste any byproduct produced in the brewing process. Left over sediment from primary (though not all) is used as my yeast starter for the next batch, bumping up my primary volume. So far six generations without problems. Water expelled from wort chiller is collected and dumped in the washing machining, which means brew day is laundry day. Wort samples for gravity readings is frozen and saved for starters. It is what you make of it.

laundry day!!! now thats funny why not just make your system dump expelled H2O back into your HLT for cleaning or maybe the second batch of the day. I do like the laundry day thing though any left over that I cant use just goes into the pool. BUT.... Your right it is what you make of it!!
JJ

The only reason I asked this is beacuse I usually make 6 gallons in primary. But when I rack into secondary I usually end up with about 4.75 gallons. I dont know why the great loss.

Brew-boy said:

The only reason I asked this is beacuse I usually make 6 gallons in primary. But when I rack into secondary I usually end up with about 4.75 gallons. I dont know why the great loss.

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Are you sure you're losing that much? A carboy with a listed capacity of 5 gallons can actually hold more than that if you fill it up to the rim. 5 gallons will usually be right around where the glass starts tapering towards the mouth.

Brew-boy said:

The only reason I asked this is beacuse I usually make 6 gallons in primary. But when I rack into secondary I usually end up with about 4.75 gallons. I dont know why the great loss.

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Yikes! Even if you took 6 gallons of water and let it sit out in your house with no lid on it, I'd find it hard to believe that, in a week, 1.25 gallons of water would evaporate. You're not doing an open ferment in the Mojave desert, are you?