total volume for 5 gal batch.

[deaner414]

hi,
i have been brewing a while and just had a thought that i probably should of thought about along time ago. when brewing a batch should i use 5 gallons of water then when i had the malt (extract) the volume will rise or should i brew with say 3 gallons of water, add malt and what not, then top off the total volume to 5 gallons? basically, should the total finish wort be 5 gallons or should it be more because of the addition of the extracts?
if it ends up more than 5 gallons, is it safe to add more priming sugar and if so, how much? seems like the beer could be a touch fizzier.

cheers,
dean

 

[richbrew99]

Spend the 20 some odd bucks for the Beersmith software, its awesome.

 

[avidhomebrewer]

You can go with a full volume boil for however big of a batch you are making. So yes, you can go with a full 5 gallons of water, bring to a boil, add the extract, bring to a boil, then boil for however long your recipe calls for. I would just add the full water volume right away. The finish volume should be your target volume; in this case, 5 gallons.

The main reason for boiling at full wort volume is for hop extraction. The 'thinner' the boil, in general, the more the hops will extract the acids (you'll get better efficiency from your hops, if you will). With a thicker boil (more extract to water), you won't get as bitter a brew for the same amount of hops added.

If it ends up more than 5 gallons, I would only ferment 5 gallons so you can add a consistent amount of priming sugar. Otherwise, your priming sugar amounts will be different for every batch.

 

[deaner414]

thanks for the info. that was kind of what i thought. i used to use all 5 gallons at once but i got a lot of boil overs and long, long cooling down periods (don't have a chiller) so i switched to the 3gal boil/ 2 gal at the end. all this time i have probably been ending up with a bit too much volume. i just finished a dunkelwiezen of sorts and it had quite a lot of malt extract. i boiled with about 3 gallons and added the remaining 2 gallons after cooling and it just looked like a bit more beer. it occured to me this recipe had a lot of malt, therefore increasing the total volume. hopefully it wont be watery or undercarbonated. the initial gravity was around .070 so its pretty heavy so to speak. think i might boil 3gal in the future and top of to the 5 gal mark on the fermentation bucket with my remaining clean water.
any other info or ideas would be most appreciated!
cheers,
dean