Loss of wort

[bluepaddle]

I was thinking about my last batch and I remember thinking to myself that I lost a lot of wort at the end to evaporation from the boil. I used a 5 gallon pot, boiled 4 gallons and at the end had to add about 1 3/4 gallons to top off primary. Is this normal or is my heat to high? I remember staying around 210 / 215 for my 60 min boil.

 

[Ziggybrew]

It's normal. A five gallon pot still makes good beer even when you have to adjust volume.

You want to be careful not to caramelize by boiling too hot with too little of water. However, Charlie P says a good healthy rolling boil has many benefits. If you plan to get deeper into brewing, plan on a big-ass pot & burner for the future.

 

[KevinW]

I start off with ~7gallons and wind up with ~5.5 gallons, however I do a 90 minute boil!
My kettle is about 17 inches in diameter. I calculate for a 5.5 gallon batch due to the loss of beer left in the fermenter when racking to the bottling bucket!

A lot of what effects the loss of liquid during the boil is size of pot, the more surface area boiling the more loss of liquid to evaporation.

1.75 gallons loss sounds about right(well technically .75 since you started out with 4 gallons), 1 downside to a smaller kettle is that you really cannot do a full boil. For you to get 5 gallons you have to boil at least 6.75 gallons.
Of course, topping off to 5 gallons is not hard to do either.:cross:

Good luck and keep on brewing:rockin:

 

[BendBrewer]

I remember staying around 210 / 215 for my 60 min boil.

I'm sure that you did.

I boil off about 1.3 gallons per hour.