specific gravity-og

[CADETS3]

i brewed my first all grain batch two weeks ago and it was supposed to result in approximately 5.5 gallons. however, i ended up collecting nearly 8 gallons of wort and only boiled off 1 gallon plus a few. my og was way off but i purchased 2 bags of beet sugar water and poured them in. with all that being said, i plan to do a secondary in 2 glass carboys and is there going to be an accurate way to calculate abv at the end? also, will it be fine to split up the batch evenly among the 2 glass carboys? reason i ask is because the amount of head space that will be exposed.
cheers

 

[mrphillips]

Head space won't be a concern if you have CO2 (fermentation) happening. It will the void and not result in any oxidation of your brew.

Since you addend 2 lbs. of simple sugar, your OG will be close to what you expected from a 5 gallon batch. The other side of the coin is that your beer will be a LOT thinner (since the simple sugar ferment out so easily.) That's not a bad thing, but something to consider if you want to stay true to style.

 

[AndytheBeave]

can you post your recipe and boil times? The first thing that jumps out is the amount of wort you ended up with in what was supposed to be a 5.5 gallon batch. This suggests that the boil wasn't nearly long enough for the amount of pre-boil wort you had. This link: http://homebrewmanual.com/home-brewing-calculations/ explains gravity points (amongst a ton of other stuff) really well and is well worth the read. You will be able to take the final gravity reading and calculate the abv as long as you have recorded your og. You should be ok splitting the batch up (I have done a few 3.5 gallon batches in a 6 gallon carboy) but you will really want to ensure you have a good, healthy yeast pitch to get the fermentation going. That will produce CO2 .

 

[CADETS3]

the recipe called out for 6.325 gallons to mash in. that was added correctly. i ended up collecting nearly 4 gallons out of that. what i didn't notice is that to batch sparge, my father-in-law poured in almost another 4 gallons. we converted the recipe from an extract to an all-grain and he misread where it said to boil at 3.5 gallons. with that being said, we ended up with a lot of water. looking back at it now, i should have just boiled most of it off prior to beginning my 60 minute boil.

 

[CADETS3]

what is the rule of thumb on how much sparging water to use? depending on the recipe, boil time, and what?

 

[CADETS3]

the beer is still currently on it's second week in the primary. one week after i added the sugar. i didn't add 2 pounds of sugar. i added the 2 packages of beet water but i can't remember how much volume was in the package. regardless, the packages measure at 1.032. to be safe, should i add a little more sugar to the glass carboys after i have racked over in order to ensure that my beer does not oxidize?

 

[CADETS3]

i added 2 of these packages
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q...FC004477D10D81AE615E26FE48FA0&selectedIndex=0

 

[AndytheBeave]

Well that kind of depends on your system and recipe and grind of the grain. What I do (FWIW), is first calculate my mash thickness that works best for my system - which is around 1.5 quarts per pound of grain. So if I have a grain bill of 10 lbs, I will use 15 quarts of strike water. Now here is where you have to do a couple of batches to learn what your system does. Once the mash is complete, you have to figure out how much wort you collect from your first runnings and how much you lose to grain absorpstion. Measure how much wort you have in the kettle, and use enough sparge water to get to your pre-boil volume. Keep your water temperatures in mind as well.
How do you know what your pre-boil volume should be? well that depends on where you live and how vigourous your boil is. I typically lose about 1.5-2 gallons or so to evaporation during the boil so I always aim for around 7.5 to 8 gallons for my pre-boil volume. This will also account for some losses in the gunk.
Now if you aren't sure of your losses yet, you can use some guestimates:
-mashing with 1.5 quarts per lb could yield around 3 gallons of first runnings with 10lbs of grain or so
with this in mind perhaps 4-5 gallons of sparge water could bring you up to your pre-boil volume

now these are just some rough numbers that approximate my system so they may or may not work for you. Others here are waaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy more experienced than me. This is just what I have done over the last year of home brewing so take it for what it's worth - a guestimate from another novice home brewer!
In any case have fun and just try different things and find out what works for you. There is a ton of great info in these forums and a lot of very knowledgeable people that are quick to help out.

 

[CADETS3]

thanks for your help. i have beer smith 2 but man there is a lot to learn on it. that'll take a while to be efficient at it and to understand all of the information.

 

[AndytheBeave]

thanks for your help. i have beer smith 2 but man there is a lot to learn on it. that'll take a while to be efficient at it and to understand all of the information.

oh yeah. Every time I log onto this site, I learn something new.
You may want to try www.brewersfriend.com as well. That site has a great recipe building tool.

 

[hou_me]

Do you fly or batch sparge?

-ben

 

[CADETS3]

i did batch on that recipe. seemed easier for my first all grain attempt.