Belgium Ale Question

[lyric0n]

Hi,
I had a couple questions about the brewing process.

After we let our grains steep in the 2 gallons of water, we pulled the bag out, and felt like the grains had absorbed quite a bit of the water (we probably had between 1-1.5 gallons). Should we have attempted to refill this with water before bringing it to a boil and adding the malt/hops/etc?

Also, last time we brewed, we went with an Irish Stout. After we let the wort ferment for a week in a closed 5 gallon bucket w/ an airlock, we transfered it into a 5 gallon carboy. Before we transfered it, we had lost ~0.5-0.75 gallons (presumably to evaporation?), should we have added water at this step to bring it back to 5 gallons?

Thanks for the information,
Chris

 

[Grinder12000]

1. yea - grains will suck up a lot of wort so if you have room add more water - also let as much of the grain drip but don;t do any squeezing as tannins will come into play.

2. I would not add water after it's done fermenting. Not sure there would be any evaporation - are you sure your carboy is a 5g??? Maybe the more normal 6.5g?

 

[Schnitzengiggle]

Sparge/rinse your grains after the steep to bring your volume back to the original amount. I set a collander into a pot and rinse my steeping grains into that with some hot tap water to get as much of the color/flavor from them, and then add that back into the original volume to bring it up to what it needs to be.