Boiling 7 gallons, bucketing 4.5gallons

[BrewBrain]

Is this a lot of loss? I used to go from 7 gallons boiled to 5 in the bucket, but recently made two changes:

1) More vigorous boil
2) Started siphoning wort into bucket instead of just dumping all the crud in from the boil pot.

I'm now having to top off, and I don't like it Am I losing more liquid than normal now?

 

[bradjoiner]

thats about what i get. i drain with a bazooka screen on my keggle. really depends on what im brewing though. i try to start with about ten gallons in my HLT just in case. water is cheap

 

[nealf]

I was having the exact same issues... I got totally fed up with it and started with 8 gallons at the beginning of the boil. Now I have over 6 (I usually shoot for 5.5) gallons of beer in the fermenter.

So, from now on I will start with 7.5 gallons; I don't know why it took me so long to learn my lesson...

 

[BrewBrain]

Yeah, I'm maxed out on my boil pot at only 7.5lb capacity. I'd much rather run extra water through the grain than top off at the end. I guess I'll have to buy a bigger pot.