Low yield brew day

I brewed a kolsch today very similar to Ed Wort's kolsch. I used the sparge pal app for iphone to calculate my volumes for mash/sparge. For a 9.5 lb grain bill I mashed 3 gallons and sparged 5.5 gallons in two batches. I filled my 30Q turkey fryer to almost full (about 0.5-1 gallons short) and saved the rest of the runnings for future yeast starters.

After a very vigorous boil with a small boil over I cooled and racked to my carboy with a yield of about 4 gallons. I was pretty surprised at the low yield and was wondering what I can do to avoid repeats (obviously no boil overs)?

Lower temp for the boil? Multiple boilings to boil more wort in a smaller pot (I am going to build a keggle soon to avoid this)?

Yes, lower the temp for the boil. I was having the same problem for a while. I have a high btu burner and was putting it on full blast for the boil. I was boiling off about 23%, and realized that you just need a boil, not a volcano.

You should be fine though w/ the 30 quart. I do have a keggle and it is nice.

You might try lowering the btu's and adding some of those tabs (maybe called trutabs?), those will eliminate the boil over problem.

Why not just top it off at the end of the boil?

weirdboy said:

Why not just top it off at the end of the boil?

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top off with excess runnings or with water? keep boiling? if so for how long?

Did you hit your OG? If you are close, just leave it alone. If you have overshot your OG, you could think about adding some bottled water.

If it were me, I would leave it alone and chalk it up as a learning experience. RDHB or whatever that acronym is.

my target OG was 1.045, i am over as or a reading 10 minutes ago of 1.06.

I guess I should add some water but how much? Top it off at 5 gallons with an extra gallon?

aeonderdonk said:

I guess I should add some water but how much? Top it off at 5 gallons with an extra gallon?

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Funny, I just had to do this calculation myself for the beer I brewed yesterday.

( 1.060 * 4 ) + ( 1.000 * 1 ) = 5.24
5.24 / 5 = 1.048

So, adding one gallon of water at 1.000 to four gallons of wort at 1.060 will yield 5 gallons of wort at 1.048.

If you really want to nail 1.045, then add 1.33 gallons of water:
((1.060*4) + (1.000*1.33)) / 5.33 = 1.04502814

Hope this helps.

-g-

phatuna said:

RDHB or whatever that acronym is.

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Relax and Drink Handy Beverages? ****, that was bleach...

Just tossed in a gallon to top off at 5G. Peeked at it this morning and it was bubbling away nicely.

Glad to hear it!

-g-

i got home tonight and it had blown the airlock off!!!! wort on my 9 foot ceiling! It smells kinda doughey almost, not sure if that's normal for this style.