Multiple batches, lots of questions for fermenting time, bottling and more!

[petismaximus]

A friend of mine and myself just got into homebrewing. After talking about doing it for a while we finally did. Brewed our first batch, a Hefeweizen, July 1st and within 11 days we now have 3 batches going. After I found out my dad used to brew years ago I took his old bucket and using that and the bucket and carboy the kit came with we thought we could work things out just right to have all 3 batches going at once without problems. Its mostly been going pretty well, a couple mistakes and lessons learned along the way, but lots of research on the forums have helped a lot. And here we are a little over 2 weeks after the first brew getting ready to bottle and have a few things to figure out.

We are planning on bottling the Hefe tomorrow, but how should we go about it? We got impatient with wanting to start more batches and going against what we read decided to rack it from our primary/bottling bucket to glass carboy. Seems like it will be difficult but not impossible to bottle directly from the carboy, any tips?

Our second brew is an IPA that we were panning to rack to secondary after 2 weeks, once we bottle the Hefe and free up the carboy. Planned on 1 week in the secondary while dry hopping. Don't really have any questions for that as time in the primary and secondary should be okay right?

The last batch we was our first attempt at an all grain, a Scotch Ale, brewed July 11. I'm worried this one wont have enough time to be as good as it could, as it needs to be ready about 5 and a half weeks after brewed. I know it should wait longer but will it be okay with 3 weeks in the primary or 2 in the primary and one in the secondary?
While brewing this we lost more than we anticipated during the boil and ended up with about 3.7 gallons. We'll have more pre boil volume next time for sure but is there anything else we can do next time to keep from losing too much or to fix it if it happens again? Thought I read you shouldn't top off?

It's a lot but I think that's all for now, thanks for helping out some newbies

 

[EVILsteve]

You might be making this harder than it needs to be.

You can skip secondary and bottle after reaching final gravity, you can also condition in the primary. Nothing is critical to the day give or take a few wont really hurt anything.

I bottle from the carboy all the time. Just siphon with a bottle tube and valve. it opens when you push it to the bottom of the bottle closes when you lift it out, makes it easy. Mixing priming sugar can be done in the same carboy by giving a very gentle stir with the handle of my mixing spoon. I try keep my mixing stick shallow mixing the top half only and give it some time to settle after this. keep the siphon around 2/3's deep till you need to move it and when it starts sucking up sediment set those bottles aside for your friends hehe.

 

[edb]

Transferring to a secondary is rarely needed so you can just extend your primary times if you want.

For your brew that came out under 5 gallons you can top it off, when brewing extracts thats part of the instructions to do a smaller boil like 3-4 gallons and then top off with water. If you want you can put your water that your topping off in the fridge and chill it thus helping you cool your wort down.

Its my preference to bottle from a bottling bucket, its just easier to stir in your priming sugar. Another benefit of the bottling bucket is if you accidentally suck up some trub with the siphon just but the top on your bottling bucket and come back a later in the day or the following day and most of that will settle out to the bottom of the bucket. Technically if you want to dry hop you could do that in a bottling bucket as well and just treat that as a secondary.