Missing Target Post Boil Volume and OG

[goudaphunk]

Hi,

I just brewed an ALL GRAIN "Dead Ringer" IPA recipe from Northern Brewer. Here's the recipe.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/dead-ringer-ipa-all-grain-kit.html

So my pre-boil volume was 6.5 gallons. My post boil volume was 5.25 gallons. (That's my normal burn off) When racking to my primary, I only ended up with 4.25 gallons from my BK. How come this happened? I think this is because I boiled 6 gallons of sparging water, and only used about 5 because I have my pre-boil volume already at 6.5.

I hit my target SG. However, my OG, which was supposed to be 1.064/1.066 came in at 1.070. Could I have added water to dilute slightly?

Any insight and help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Jimmy

 

[goudaphunk]

I took my SG right before boiling to add the hop additions.

 

[HopSong]

did you let the wort cool before doing the OG? If yes.. sure, you can top up with water. Wouldn't take much to bring it down to 64 tho. But would end up close to 5g

 

[goudaphunk]

Yep, the wort was cool. I added a little bit of water and got the OG to 1.064. I was just bummed about my volume total. Do you think it could have been because I did not use all my sparge water?

 

[HopSong]

Probably.. but, learning your system is important.. Write down what you did and make corrections next time. Repeat till you KNOW your equipment and how it works. It's real hard to predict EXACTLY your boil off rate.. but you should get close. Reason I say that, especially if you are using a propane burner.. is that a little more heat next time (or less) could skew your results.. but, you'll be closer each time, especially if you are good at "seat of the pants" observation of your boil. Also, outside temp affects it as does wind on a windy day.. but, if you were to do it in a garage with no wind.. you have temp to consider.. Cold days maybe not so much boil off.. summer days.. maybe more.. So, variables.. but,

 

[chickypad]

It sounds like you are saying your boil off was spot on, but you lost a gallon transferring from brew kettle to fermenter? If you're going to routinely leave that much behind then you need to recalculate things for a larger post boil volume. I find I lose less to trub just dumping everything in and letting it compact down in the fermenter.

 

[seckert]

It sounds like you are saying your boil off was spot on, but you lost a gallon transferring from brew kettle to fermenter? If you're going to routinely leave that much behind then you need to recalculate things for a larger post boil volume. I find I lose less to trub just dumping everything in and letting it compact down in the fermenter.

I second this. I don't dump everything in my primary now, but I use a big screen strainer to get the trub out without losing as much as possible of the wort.

 

[IslandLizard]

Hopsong said it. Learn your equipment and pre-calculate your losses.

I still tend to come in a little short too, usually due to trub losses and contraction, but mostly from unpredicted extra boil off. Gravity tends to be a bit higher because of that, so I add the right amount of boiled water to my kettle and pump that through.

What I learned, before you start your timer, is to make sure you got all your gravity points in your kettle, including those that will be lost to trub and equipment, and what else. And it's way easier to add some more water in the end than to have to boil off the excess, or worse, get stuck with leftover wort in the BK. Then you'll come up short on gravity.