Ummm...how much beer do you think this is?

[adkrogue]

I did my first all grain batch yesterday, I was shooting for 5 gal, OG of 1.072, and abv of 7.2

10lbs Pale Ale
2 lbs Pilsen
1 lb Crystal 10
.5 lb honey malt
.25 lb victory
.25lb carapils
14lbs Total

I had a near disaster mashing in and spilled about a lb of grain onto my deck; I think I salvaged at least half of that.

My strike water was heated to 169 but once I had mashed it all in, and cleaned up my disaster, the final temp of the mash was around 146. I added a half gallon of 170 to get it up to 149 then another half gallon to get it to 152.6.

I sparged with 4.5 gals of 170 degree water, trying to get to a 7 gal boil (assuming I'd lose 1/10 gal for each 1lbs of grain and 1/2 gal for mashtun deadspace - I have a cylinder cooler with false bottom).

For this IPA, I put all but my bittering hops in bags (i hate scrubbing the filter on the funnel, it breaks my back) so I think I actually saved a lot of beer here, where I'd estimated I'd lose .5 gal to trub, and a 1.5 gals during the boil. However, I think i ended up with about 6.25 gals of beer. This is a 6.5 gal carboy - the thermo sticker is about 5 gals. Does that seem right? 6.25? I thought I would have lost a LOT more during the boil and my OG is way off (1.047). Now, I'm just trying to figure out how much I have to determine a new exp OG. Thanks for any help!

 

[Greenbasterd]

that is the 23 liter mark. or 5 imperial gals

 

[Scuba_Stan]

If that is a Betterboy 6.25gal fermentor that should be around 5.5gal.

 

[adkrogue]

Thanks guys - not a betterboy. its a glass 6.5 gal carboy so 6 gals at that mark seems right on.

 

[ChaosStout]

Id be VERY worried using those carboy handles. Those are ment to carry empty carboys not full. With a full one you could snap the neck of the carboy, drop and bam big mess and hospital trip.

 

[TopherM]

You should always aim to hit the proper OG, NOT aim for full volume. The fact that you lost that grain but ended up with about 6 gallons anyway means that you are way off recipe and have made a watered down version of the beer you were aiming for. It may still be a good beer, through, so definitely ride it out!!

Learn from this. What you should have done was either figured out approximately how much grain you lost and reduced your water volume by a similar % (you could figure this out exactly if you had brewing software, like BeerSmith), or more easily just planned to boil down a little longer to get to the recipe OG.

Good luck on this batch!

 

[FATC1TY]

That recipe sounds like it will be for those that love sweets!

Anyways- I'd be watching that fermentation. Looks like it's pretty full and begging for a blow off tube.

 

[StanJohnson]

I don't see an airlock or blow off tube.