Brewing in high altitude

I recently moved form Chicago to Denver and am curious if anyone here has any tips or advice for brewing in high altitude. I made my first two brews (IPA and Porter) a few months ago and witnessed first hand the necessity to increase my boil volume due to the increased evaporation (I increased 5.5 gal to 7.0 gal). What I was not expecting was the 0.5 gallons of evaporation loss during secondary fermentation. Is this typical or did I do something wrong on both batches? Is my 7.0 gal boil volume off?

Anyone, please help.

Mike

You shouldn't have lost anything due to evaporation during secondary....

My guess is you didn't measure accurately.

I brew at 7,000-ft, and don't see much of a change in boil-off (I average ~0.9-1.1 gallons/hour).

My "boil" is closer to 201 degrees, but that's the biggest difference that I see for "high altitude" brewing...

I've seen videos on youtube of people who lug their gear up to the 14ers in Colorado and brew on top of the mountain at 14,000 - and it works for them....

I brew in Fort Collins. It seems to me that I need to mash a bit thinner (1.5qt/lb) as with most of my cooking needs a bit more water. I can't figure out evaporation loss in secondary though. Aren't you secondarying in a closed container?

I'm at about 4000' altitude and haven't experienced much if any evaporation from secondary. I wouldn't think that you would lose much more due to boiling. While the boiling point is lower at higher altitudes, you are timing and adjusting your boil based on the boil as opposed to the temperature of the water. Additional moister could potentially be absorbed into the air due to a low relative humidity, which out here is fairly common.

I haven't done a boil yet as I'm still doing beer in a box fermenting. I'll see how things go when I brew my own, but I wouldn't have a baseline to work with since I won't really be brewing outside this altitude. Lowest altitude I figure I would brew at is probably 3850'.

When I moved back to Denver I found myself lowering the boil intensity to keep boil off in my normal range. My airlocks dry out faster than they did in the PNW, but I'm not losing volume from the secondary. Keep your airlocks topped up.

Thanks to all. I have a brew scheduled for this weekend. I'll assume abot 1 gal of evaporation per hour during the boil and add a bit more liquor to my mash. Other than that. I guess i just have to get used to the altitude. I'm still confused on the secondary, but I'll make sure my locks don't dry out and go from there.

I guess I will just have to brew more until I get the hang of it. Darn

I brew at over 7100 feet, and don't have any loss in the fermentation, so I am not sure what is going on there.

As far as the boil goes, it is mostly due to the low humidity that typically comes from living out west. It also greatly varies with the time of year, as heating already dry air makes it VERY dry. The low last night at my house was -14F, and the humidity inside my house was around 10%. Just making pasta on my stove I lost a good volume of water.

Otherwise I do not make any other adjustments. I just make sure there is a bit more water in the pot in the winter than the summer.

Jim

I have been to many of the breweries around the state and about half of them have stated that they do longer boils (75-90mins) for hop utilization....since our boil temp is somewhat lower.