Thanks Bovine, I'll check that out.
So quick question, what happens if you follow the recipe and you end up with too much wort for a 5 gallon batch at the end? Do you dump the rest?
I'm still new to AG so I don't know how much to expect for boil off, etc. I've just been following Midwest's and Austin's recipes.
Thanks!
T
No, don't dump it! You should be right in the ballpark, but if you have a 5.25 gallon batch instead of a 5 gallon batch, it's no big deal.
If you find you have too much wort pre-boil (and up to 6.5 gallons is NOT too much!), you can boil some for starters and the like and freeze it for later use.
I had a 7.5 gallon pot when I started AG, and though it's really a bit small, you can do it. A smaller pot isn't really adequate, though. You usually start with about 6.25-6.5 gallons to end up with 5 in the fermenter. During the summer, your boil rates can vary from the winter, so sometimes boil-off is a guess for most of us anyway.
You may want to drain your runnings into a bucket or pot with measurements, or mark your spoon with tick marks at each gallon. It's harder to figure boil off when you don't even know how much wort you started with!
One thing to do for next time is to "work backwards". What I mean is this- say you want 6.5 gallons of wort to start with. Drain your first runnings, and measure them. Say they are 2.5 gallons. That means you need 4 gallons of sparge water to get you to 6.5 gallons. That way you never miss your volume. You can heat up more sparge water, so that it's ready, but measure it going in so you know how much you have coming out. There isn't any aborption by the grains during the sparge.