Wort...where did you go??

[JerryMN]

I had a couple buddies over on Saturday having drinks and brewing my second batch, a 5 gallon apple ale. I planned to add a gallon of preservative free apple cider a few days after going into the carboy, so I started my wort with 4 gallons of water. Brewing went pretty successful and we drank beers well into the night/morning. The next day I went to go check on things and noticed it looked REALLY low, like it was only 2-3 gallons low. Did I some how boil off a gallon of water? Did I get loaded and drink wort? I am going purely off how it looks but t looks damn low. Even after I added my cider it looks low, thoughts?

 

[Dan]

You need to try this one again. The vigor of a boil is directly proportional to the loss of liquid. Boiling is boiling, however the more vigorous the boil is, the more water evaporates which results in less volume of cooled liquid in the end.

 

[jester5120]

yeah you can easily boil off a gallon of wort

 

[JerryMN]

So in this situation should I have topped up with water to get back to where I needed to be? Maybe I should mark my carboy so I know the 5 gallon mark.

 

[Dan]

So in this situation should I have topped up with water to get back to where I needed to be? Maybe I should mark my carboy so I know the 5 gallon mark.

Top off water is an option. Boil and cool it the necessary amount, then add to the fermeter bucket

 

[TopherM]

Boil off depends on the diameter of your boil kettle, but can easily be 1.0-1.5 gallons per hour of boil time. My boil pot boils off 1.2 gallons per hour.

You are also going to lose some starting volume to grain absorbsion (not so much if you are doing extract batches), trub, and evaporation during the cooling phase (about 0.2 gallons per 1/2 hour).

If you see brewing as an ongoing hobby, invest in BEERSMITH II software. Birdman brewing has it for about $23.00, but I would easily pay 4X that for all of the convenience it provides. You can set up a custom profile for your specific equipment and it will calculate all of your starting water volumes (and sparging/step volumes once you start doing AG). It automatically calculates about 25 different variables used in the brewing process....everything from OG, expected FG, IBUs, SRM (color), ABV, all water volumes, yeast pitch rates and starter sizes, fermentation times, temps.....all sorts of useful stuff.

Anyway, get the program. It's more than worth the cost!

 

[jester5120]

+1 on beersmith. Easily the best piece of brewing equipment i've bought

 

[JerryMN]

Awesome, thanks for the tip!

 

[BirdmanBrewingCo]

Boil off depends on the diameter of your boil kettle, but can easily be 1.0-1.5 gallons per hour of boil time. My boil pot boils off 1.2 gallons per hour.

You are also going to lose some starting volume to grain absorbsion (not so much if you are doing extract batches), trub, and evaporation during the cooling phase (about 0.2 gallons per 1/2 hour).

If you see brewing as an ongoing hobby, invest in BEERSMITH II software. Birdman brewing has it for about $23.00, but I would easily pay 4X that for all of the convenience it provides. You can set up a custom profile for your specific equipment and it will calculate all of your starting water volumes (and sparging/step volumes once you start doing AG). It automatically calculates about 25 different variables used in the brewing process....everything from OG, expected FG, IBUs, SRM (color), ABV, all water volumes, yeast pitch rates and starter sizes, fermentation times, temps.....all sorts of useful stuff.

Anyway, get the program. It's more than worth the cost!

Thanks Topher! And it's actually just $21.89.

http://www.birdmanbrewing.com/beersmith-2-0-brewing-software-downloadable-version/