I just did my first all-grain batch on my new setup and wound up only putting 4.5 gallons in my primary.
Recipe:
Some Kind of Bitter
8 lbs 2 row
.5 lb Caramel 60
60 min boil
1 oz Fuggles FWH
.5 oz Fuggles 60m
.5 oz Cascade 60m
.5 oz Fuggles 30m
Safale 04
My mash was 3.5 gallons, my sparge was 3.75, which should mean my total volume was 7.25 gallons. Figure 0.13 gallons/lb lost to grain absorption means 1.105 gallons lost, meaning 6.15-ish gallons pre-boil. Loss to mash tun dead space is almost negligible, I measured it at 125 mL. Boil was 60 minutes, 15% boiloff per hour, about 1 gallon would boil off, so I should have 5 gallons left in my kettle.
But I didn't. I dumped pretty much everything from the kettle into my primary(including a lot of trub because I wanted all the sweet sweet wort I could get) and it only came up to the 4.5 gallon mark on my carboy. What gives!
Another point of confusion:
My pre-boil gravity was 1.022 at 115 degrees fahrenheit. I plugged that into a calculator and it says it would be 1.032 at 60 degrees. Post-boil, post-chill gravity was... 1.032 at 70 degrees. What? How can I have the same gravity pre and post boil if almost a gallon of liquid was boiled off? Is it because I really, really shouldn't try taking gravity measurements at 115 degrees and using a formula to adjust?
My efficiency was also way off -- 61% according to Beer Alchemy. Yeek. I think that's because I had difficulty controlling the mash temperature in my mash tun. I preheated it with about a gallon of almost boiling water for maybe 10 minutes, tossed in my grains, and then threw in strike water at 166 degrees. Temperature dropped to 152(YES!) and stayed there for about 10 minutes, then slid down to 148. Uhoh. I started collecting wort from my mash tun, pouring it into the kettle I was heating my sparge water in, and recirculating to bring it back up to 152. Got it at 152 and it held for another 10 minutes, then dropped back down. This is with a Coleman Xtreme cooler, which I thought was supposed to be pretty good for holding temperature, but I had a lot of difficulty!
Either way... the gravity is 1.032, the attenuation of the yeast is about 73%, I can expect a FG around 1.009 and about 4 gallons after racking off the cake of a 3.2% ish session beer. RDWHAHB I suppose... but I want to hit my targets next time
Recipe:
Some Kind of Bitter
8 lbs 2 row
.5 lb Caramel 60
60 min boil
1 oz Fuggles FWH
.5 oz Fuggles 60m
.5 oz Cascade 60m
.5 oz Fuggles 30m
Safale 04
My mash was 3.5 gallons, my sparge was 3.75, which should mean my total volume was 7.25 gallons. Figure 0.13 gallons/lb lost to grain absorption means 1.105 gallons lost, meaning 6.15-ish gallons pre-boil. Loss to mash tun dead space is almost negligible, I measured it at 125 mL. Boil was 60 minutes, 15% boiloff per hour, about 1 gallon would boil off, so I should have 5 gallons left in my kettle.
But I didn't. I dumped pretty much everything from the kettle into my primary(including a lot of trub because I wanted all the sweet sweet wort I could get) and it only came up to the 4.5 gallon mark on my carboy. What gives!
Another point of confusion:
My pre-boil gravity was 1.022 at 115 degrees fahrenheit. I plugged that into a calculator and it says it would be 1.032 at 60 degrees. Post-boil, post-chill gravity was... 1.032 at 70 degrees. What? How can I have the same gravity pre and post boil if almost a gallon of liquid was boiled off? Is it because I really, really shouldn't try taking gravity measurements at 115 degrees and using a formula to adjust?
My efficiency was also way off -- 61% according to Beer Alchemy. Yeek. I think that's because I had difficulty controlling the mash temperature in my mash tun. I preheated it with about a gallon of almost boiling water for maybe 10 minutes, tossed in my grains, and then threw in strike water at 166 degrees. Temperature dropped to 152(YES!) and stayed there for about 10 minutes, then slid down to 148. Uhoh. I started collecting wort from my mash tun, pouring it into the kettle I was heating my sparge water in, and recirculating to bring it back up to 152. Got it at 152 and it held for another 10 minutes, then dropped back down. This is with a Coleman Xtreme cooler, which I thought was supposed to be pretty good for holding temperature, but I had a lot of difficulty!
Either way... the gravity is 1.032, the attenuation of the yeast is about 73%, I can expect a FG around 1.009 and about 4 gallons after racking off the cake of a 3.2% ish session beer. RDWHAHB I suppose... but I want to hit my targets next time