Measuring 5 gallons...

[rocketsan]

...is it this simple:

Doing a 5 gallon kit...I want to buy a 6.5 glass carboy...

Can I dump 5 gallons of water in and tape a fill line so when it's time to dump my extract wort in, I'll know how much water to add ) to get liquid up to 5gallons)? I know I'll have to give carboy a good shaking to ensure it mixes well (right?).

 

[Hammy71]

Yes, fill to 5 gallons and either use tape or a permanent marker. After you add your "top off" water, plug the top and shake the begezus out of it.

 

[helibrewer]

I use 6 gallon Better Bottles for 5 gallon batches without issue...just use a blow off tube and or antifoam.

 

[unionrdr]

I use a 1 gallon SunnyD jug marked in quarts with a marker & a measuring cup up to one gallon. comes in handy for marking carboys or measuring mash water.

 

[BradTheGeek]

What uniondr said is good. Go ahead and mark your carboy in 1 gallon increments (even to the quart if you want). You may only be doing 5 gallon batches now, but being able to use it to measure in a pinch is good. No worrying about it in the middle of a boil or something else hectic. I do this for all of my containers (currently two frosting buckets converted to bottling, 1 five-gal carboy, 3 one-gal carboys, and a 6 gallon fermentation bucket.

It is also handy for correctly measuring out starsan or your sanitizer of choice when you grab a bucket and add water to it to start soaking stuff.

 

[flars]

Last month I got out my 7.5 gallon carboy to use for a hefeweizen. Haven't used it in years. The duct tape which marked the 5 gallon line was almost worn off. The tape was wide enough that from the bottom to the top would have equalled more than a gallon of wort in the carboy. It occured to me that I wasn't positive the bottom or the top of the tape was the 5 gallon mark. Had to remeasure. 5 gallons was at the top of the tape as I had marked newer carboys.

I'm aging so I thought I should protect myself. I cut arrow markers using Gorilla tape to point at the 5 gallon line. Had nothing else to do that evening.

 

[rocketsan]

Gorilla tape...great idea!!!

 

[Thedutchtouch]

I used electrical tape for a while now with good results, but typically use a graduated bucket as a primary these days so have no real need for measuring in the carboy. Sticks fine, but also easily removable with no/minimal residue if you do want it off. Sharpie was getting wiped off too easily when I cleaned/sanitized.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

If you want an extra level of precise about your measurement and have a digital scale, weigh your empty carboy, then fill it up and it should be ~8.35# per gallon of water.

 

[hbtasdfg]

I was going to say the 8 lbs per gallon trick or 8.3 or whatever but also if it's wort correct for gravity- so if you weigh it at 40 lbs and gravity is 1.05 the gallon measure is 40/8.35/1.05 =4.56 gallon