Hitting target volumes

[Wiesty]

Hey all,
So I just recently brewed an IIPA. My target volume was 5.25 gallons so I chose to just brew 5.25 gallons as my stove couldnt handle much more. I had top up water ready to go but I notced that once I had the 12 lbs of LME in there, my volume was much higher. At the end of the brew my volume was just a little under 5.25 gallons without adding any top of water. So one of two things happened.

a. I did not get as vigirous of a boil as a should have (Which is possible due to boiling on a stove, but it was rolling most of the time.)
b. The 12 lbs of LME greatly displaced some water.

So my question is, how do you account for extract when trying to determine your pre-boil volume?

Also, my target OG was 1.083, and we ended up at 1.087. A little more booze, fine by me.

 

[JimRausch]

12 lb of LME is pretty close to 1 gallon, correct? So, I'm guessing b.
I haven't done an all extract batch in quite awhile but when I did, my boiling volumes were always less than full, so the amount of LME didn't matter.
Your OG was better than predicted(did you top off the little bit you needed to make 5.25G?) so I agree with you- it's all good.

 

[Wiesty]

No we did not top off at all which is why the OG was significantly higher. But we weren't far off our target volume of 5.25G even though our pre boil volume was 5.25. I just find it odd that no recipes ever take into account amount of LME when determining boil volumes.

 

[flars]

I don't worry about coming up short of the recipe volume in the fermentor when doing extract. I just top off with cold water. This also helps reduce the temperature of the wort to yeast pitching temperature.
As long as all the fermentables were added to the boil kettle, the OG will be that of the recipe.