First time with AG, need advice

[jandy]

After scouring the different threads, reading and rereading How to Brew's chapters on it, and watching various Youtube videos I finally decided that I could probably handle an AG brew sessions without too much trouble. So I bought myself a 5 gal MLT and HLT (the 5 gal setup from NB), wrote up a pretty basic recipe based on one I have done as a PM multiple times in the past, and got to work yesterday.

I preheated the mash tun, seemed to hit all my temps within only a couple degrees, and collected about 6.5 gal of wort into my 8 gal ss kettle. It being winter in Chicago, I am confined to my stovetop in my apartment. Straddling 2 burners on my stove, I got the wort to a rolling boil in about 45 minutes. After a 60 minute boil, it looked like about a gallon had boiled off.

I don't own a wort chiller, so my method of cooling my wort involves a big rubber tub I got at target with a slushy mix of ice and water that I immerse the kettle in and stir, changing the slush as often as needed until the wort is cooled to about 75 degrees. This usually takes about 30 minutes.

After transferring to my 6.5 gal carboy, it seemed that I only had about 4 gal left. The higher OG helped to confirm this a little it. I didn't want to top it off, so I'm just letting this one do its thing and trying to learn what I did wrong and what methods I should change for next time.

Ideas? I know I lose some liquid through the boil process, but 2.5 gal in an hour seems like a lot.

 

[yjfun]

If you used whole hops there would be some loss from that and depending on how much trub you left in the kettle that could account for some more.

 

[jimbot]

Loosing a gallon of water in an hour of boiling is about right. There isn't a whole lot you can do about that. I take it there was a lot of break material in the kettle, and you couldn't move it all? You might pour it through a funnel/filter to get all the liquid out that you can, leaving the break behind, rather than just racking or pouring whats on top.

Sometimes we just have to come up with solutions to our limitations -- what about starting next time with a higher pre-boil gravity? That way you can top off before pitching, and still hit the OG you wanted?

-Jimbot

 

[RM-MN]

You probably left the trub in the boil kettle and lost some there. Next time dump it all in and let the yeast decide what to do with it. It will all settle to the bottom and get covered in yeast.

 

[jandy]

I actually didn't leave any trub in the kettle, and I poured it through a funnel/filter. I did have to stop a few times while pouring because the filter was clogged, so I figured I lost some liquid through discarding that, but not that much... I only used 2 oz of hops.

How much could have been lost in the cooling process?

 

[jimbot]

How much could have been lost in the cooling process?

Wort will shrink about 4% from boiling to pitching temp. So in a 5 gal batch, that's almost a quart. Still leaves some mystery as where the rest of your batch went off to.

Do you have any pets/kids/neighbor kids that could have sneaked a sample? :cross:

 

[KingsTab]

Zacster noticed that I lost about 2 gallons from end of boil to final bottling volume on my recipe from Beersmith. I took another look at my water volumes and it shows losses as said in the previous replies Trub loss-cooling loss- as well as evaportaion. So it makes sense of why you noticed the loss

 

[jandy]

So next time should I shoot for 7 to 7.5 gal pre boil volume to get to 5 gal post boil/cooling? My kettle is 8, so I think it can handle that much...

 

[KingsTab]

I would, but just be sure you compensate your grains,hops,yeast, etc to make up for the extra water.

 

[Kayos]

I hate math. Buy Beersmith. Answers questions like this and it's fun to play with.

 

[JoyousRuction]

It helps to have a way to measure the number of gallons in your kettle mid boil. I have the volumes marked on the side of my brew kettle, a stock or spoon could also be marked gallon by gallon.

If you has that information you would know exactly how much wort you had at the beginning of your boil and at the end of your boil.

For what it's worth I had 8 gallons out of my lauter tun last night night, had it boil down to a bit under 7 gallons, then lost another 0.75 gallons to hot break. Your numbers seem reasonable.