Topping up to full volume

[mattjgalloway]

I've just got a new fermenter which is 2 gallons in size. I've only had 1 gallon up until now. My boil kettle can hold around 7 litres, so ~1.5 gallons. So I can easily do a 1 gallon brew. But I'm wondering if I can top up the water at some point in the process to eek out to 2 gallons.

I do BIAB, so I'm thinking I could use 1.5 times the grain bill, then keep adding water during the boil to end up at around 1.5 gallons.

Or I could top up right at the end of the boil.

Or I could do neither and stick with 1 gallons.

Any thoughts on this? Much appreciated if so!

 

[tim_c7]

I've just got a new fermenter which is 2 gallons in size. I've only had 1 gallon up until now. My boil kettle can hold around 7 litres, so ~1.5 gallons. So I can easily do a 1 gallon brew. But I'm wondering if I can top up the water at some point in the process to eek out to 2 gallons.

I do BIAB, so I'm thinking I could use 1.5 times the grain bill, then keep adding water during the boil to end up at around 1.5 gallons.

Or I could top up right at the end of the boil.

Or I could do neither and stick with 1 gallons.

Any thoughts on this? Much appreciated if so!

Congrats on the upgrade. I am sure you will like having more beer.

On the subject of topping off, I top off in the fermentation vessel when I do a partial boil. I boil a higher gravity wort knowing that I will be adding water in the fermentation vessel. One of the nice things about this is the quick cooling effect it has on the wort.

I hope that helps. Happy brewing!

 

[mattjgalloway]

Nice one .

What about IBUs? Does it affect anything there? Do I need to change my calculations somehow?

 

[p_p]

Nice one .

What about IBUs? Does it affect anything there? Do I need to change my calculations somehow?

If brewing higher gravity to then dilute down to target, take in consideration your efficiency will drop.

In terms of IBUs, two things to consider. Utilization will suffer as you are now dealing with a wort twice the gravity. And you will need twice the IBUs in that wort which may be difficult to achieve is your target IBU are already high. For example if you want a 50 IBU IPA you will need a 100 IBU wort at twice the target gravity. You may not be able to achieve that as there are limitations (solubility, pH, etc.)

Buying a bigger kettle may be an investment worthwhile.

Anyone wants to double check what I wrote up there is correct? All theory to me.

 

[unionrdr]

I top off to recipe volume with spring water chilled in the fridge & day or two before brew day. Chill the wort down to 75F or so, then top off with chilled water to about 65F real quick. I also use BS2 to formulate recipes to my partial boil, partial mash biab style. There are free programs on line for designing recipes too.

 

[mattjgalloway]

I also use BS2 to formulate recipes to my partial boil, partial mash biab style.

Interesting. How do you do that in BeerSmith?

 

[p_p]

I top off to recipe volume with spring water chilled in the fridge & day or two before brew day. Chill the wort down to 75F or so, then top off with chilled water to about 65F real quick. I also use BS2 to formulate recipes to my partial boil, partial mash biab style. There are free programs on line for designing recipes too.

How much is your top up from the total volume? I am curious.

 

[chickypad]

My small system is 3 gal, but I occasionally do 5 gal by topping off with 2 gals of water. The main problem doing this is the potential efficiency dip. For example to get 5 gals of 1.055 beer I need to brew 3 gals of about 1.092 wort. Due to the proportionately less sparge I take about a 7-8% efficiency hit, so I mostly only brew medium to low gravity beers like this unless I'm adding additional sugars (or extract). You could try doing the extra sparge and adding that as you boil off, though not sure how much you'd gain that way.

For Beersmith I just make the recipe as a 5 gal batch then put in 2 gal top off water on the volume page (and adjust down my efficiency based on previous experience).

Edit: as mentioned above you may also max out on IBU's topping off, I don't do very hoppy beers this way.

 

[p_p]

My small system is 3 gal, but I occasionally do 5 gal by topping off with 2 gals of water. The main problem doing this is the potential efficiency dip. For example to get 5 gals of 1.055 beer I need to brew 3 gals of about 1.092 wort. Due to the proportionately less sparge I take about a 7-8% efficiency hit, so I mostly only brew medium to low gravity beers like this unless I'm adding additional sugars (or extract). You could try doing the extra sparge and adding that as you boil off, though not sure how much you'd gain that way.

For Beersmith I just make the recipe as a 5 gal batch then put in 2 gal top off water on the volume page (and adjust down my efficiency based on previous experience).

Edit: as mentioned above you may also max out on IBU's topping off, I don't do very hoppy beers this way.

Apologies I keep asking, but this is something I have always been curious about. How do you deal with your hops in the concentrated wort in order to hit the target IBU?

 

[applescrap]

I topped up once and didn't like it....granted it wasn't all grain. ...seems that the water really needs to be in it for the full monty or its not as good....i think if it tastes great then your set! but if its not as good as your other batches thats why.

 

[unionrdr]

Interesting. How do you do that in BeerSmith?

You have to set up " my equipment" for each style brewed in BS2. All grain, partial mash (which also covers biab), & extract. Including boil off, etc. It then does the calculations for you.

How much is your top up from the total volume? I am curious.

I do 5-6 gallon batches, but the same theory applies to smaller batches as well.
I use the same 5 gallon SS kettle I started with using biab, medium body, batch sparge. So I boil about 3 1/2 gallons, then top up to recipe volume in the primary fermenter. So about 2 1/2 gallons after boil off to 5 gallons recipe volume with the chilled water. In the case of small batches, maybe 1/2 gallon or so top off.

 

[chickypad]

Apologies I keep asking, but this is something I have always been curious about. How do you deal with your hops in the concentrated wort in order to hit the target IBU?

I just let the software do it and hope it's in the ballpark. I think the common wisdom is there is less effect on utilization from increasing gravity than previously thought, and this seems to be the case when I use the Beersmith calculations (for example the last beer I did this way was an Am wheat, IBU calculated at 23 with the top off, 28.5 if I change it to a full boil).

Really the big issue is dilution - if you're trying to brew a beer with 90 IBU you won't be able to get there if topping off a significant amount. As I said that's why I don't brew beers like IPAs this way.

 

[chickypad]

I topped up once and didn't like it....granted it wasn't all grain. ...seems that the water really needs to be in it for the full monty or its not as good....i think if it tastes great then your set! but if its not as good as your other batches thats why.

I have at least 4 recipes that I have experience with as both full boil all grain batches and then topped off (off the top of my head an American wheat, a saison, a blonde, and an amber). There was no difference in taste that I could tell. So at least for medium gravity beers that are not hop bombs it works well for me. A lot of folks report taste issues boiling concentrated extract batches - like darkening of wort, twang, etc. I can only speak for all grain and PM done this way (for the latter adding both top off water and extract at the end). I'd recommend a late addition of extract if you didn't already try it and are going to do a partial boil again.

 

[mattjgalloway]

Just did my first topping up batch. Hit the OG within 0.001. Seems good so far, but let's see what it's like when it's finished!

 

[DeadAirJeff]

I'm fairly new to All-Grain - just did my fourth batch last Friday - and I'm still trying to figure out the boil-off rate for my set up. I was attempting a Ballast Point Grunion clone recipe that I cobbled together, and my my pre-boil gravity was spot on. However, when all was said and done, the post-boil gravity was too high... Turns out I boiled more vigorously than usual (probably because I was fighting wind all afternoon and had to turn the burner up several times) and boiled off about .75 gallons more than expected. I topped off in the kettle (with distilled water) to the volume I had expected to have, stirred it, and took a new reading, and my OG was spot-on where I wanted it.

It's still in the fermenter, bubbling away nicely, so we'll see if there are any ill-effects of having topped off an All-Grain batch, but I'm thinking it will be just fine

 

[DeadAirJeff]

I'm fairly new to All-Grain - just did my fourth batch last Friday - and I'm still trying to figure out the boil-off rate for my set up. I was attempting a Ballast Point Grunion clone recipe that I cobbled together, and my my pre-boil gravity was spot on. However, when all was said and done, the post-boil gravity was too high... Turns out I boiled more vigorously than usual (probably because I was fighting wind all afternoon and had to turn the burner up several times) and boiled off about .75 gallons more than expected. I topped off in the kettle (with distilled water) to the volume I had expected to have, stirred it, and took a new reading, and my OG was spot-on where I wanted it.

It's still in the fermenter, bubbling away nicely, so we'll see if there are any ill-effects of having topped off an All-Grain batch, but I'm thinking it will be just fine

Just to follow-up on this, the beer that I topped-up came out wonderfully. I still need to work on the hop bill to get the clone down, but I can't find any noticeable issues from having used the extra water after the boil to hit my target OG/Volume.