I lost a gallon?

[JayZeus]

Anyone ever follow a 5 gallon recipe but then end up with only 4 gallons in the fermenter?

I'm not sure what I did wrong unless I magically boiled off an extra gallon in the last 15 minutes of the boil.

This recipe calls for an OG of 1.053. I'm at a whopping 1.070!

Should I let it ride and see how it turns out or boil (and chill) a gallon of RO water and add it to the fermenter?

 

[Sammy86]

Sounds to me like you either boiled down too much/ had crazy better mash efficiency or your measurements are off. You can add water to lower the OG but be careful because you don't want to lower it too much.

You can let it ride but be prepared for something that wasn't originally planned.

 

[brewSJ]

If you boil off one gallon, you'll concentrate the sugars into the remaining wort and raise your gravity proportionally.

53 * (5/4) = 66 or 1.066 and you measured 1.070. Sounds like yes, you did in fact boil off a bit more than a gallon (assuming you started with exactly five).

 

[Airborneguy]

All grain or extract? If extract, you boiled too much or didn’t measure your water right. If all grain, you may have miscalculated the amount to mash with to achieve enough pre-boil wort. Or you boiled too much.

 

[JayZeus]

It's all grain. The recipe called for a pre-boil volume of 6 gallons which I was on target with.
So, I must have boiled off too much. The last time I looked at the volume was with 15 minutes left and I was flirting with the 5 gallon mark.
I do find it plausible that I over boiled because I forgot to drop my chiller in 10 minutes before flame out so I let it run a little while longer.

IN ADDITION... Now that I think about it... I did overshoot my strike water and ended up mashing in 10° higher than designed for the first 20-30 minutes. (I just left the lid off the mash tun so it would cool off) Would that contribute to a higher OG than intended?

 

[JayZeus]

I think I'm gonna add a gallon of water and hope for the best. If I just use a gallon of distilled water, right out of the bottle, I should be fine from a sanitation perspective, right?

 

[hotbeer]

(I just left the lid off the mash tun so it would cool off) Would that contribute to a higher OG than intended?

Probably only a tad.

If you had a significant difference in OG, then your first thing to look at is if your water volume at the end of boil matches what the recipe said. If it did, then your mash efficiency was likely better or worse than what the recipe was figured at.

Most of the recipes I've used figure only a 70% mash efficiency and I have to adjust the malts and other fermentables for the 85% or so that I actually get so I don't wind up with too high a OG that I'd have to dilute and waste.

With my boil kettle, I always seem to have a higher boil off than what is typical for others. Or at least from the boil off rates posted on various homebrew websites. Don't ask me what that is, because I've forgotten.

Probably bottled water of any sort is sanitary enough. However I always have some water boiling on the stove to add as make up water during the boil and if needed I use that to top of the FV if my OG needs to be brought down.... it's usually cooled enough by the time I get the wort chilled and in the FV.

 

[camonick]

The recipe called for a pre-boil volume of 6 gallons which I was on target with.

That might be what the recipe says, but if it isn’t correct for your equipment profile, it’s not a reliable data point.

 

[gonpce]

I've added 1 gal. Of water directly from jug several times with no problem

 

[SonomaBrewer]

I've added a gallon from an unopened container of distilled several times to catch up on gravity. Never had any issues, just a little more beer in the end.

 

[pvtpublic]

You also should take into account of the expansion of boiling wort. However, it's usually about 4%, not an entire gallon. Did you leave your kettle trub behind? If so, was it an IPA?

I usually only lose volume at the tap....

 

[gewehr43sniper]

I'm not sure what equipment you are using, but I have a grainfather g40, a spike flex+ fermenter, and keg. On 5 gallon brews I always end up with about 4 gallons in the keg due to loss in the bottom of the grainfather that remains, the wort that remains in the lines and chiller, and the bit in the bottom of the spike flex+ containing the trub and yeast and some beer.