Water amount question

[Wyobrew22]

I was just wondering about this. In say a five gallon batch if you started with five gallons boiled everything and then put it in the primary some will be lost to evaporation also some is lost to dumping or leaving behind trub during transfer. Would it be ok to use extra water to make up for this loss? Like say do a five gallon recipe or kit but boil 6? Or would this just result in watered down beer? If it's ok where would one draw the line on the extra water amount?

 

[Pickngrin]

Your thoughts about winding up with less than 5 gallons are correct, due to the reasons you mentioned. If you simply add an additional gallon of water, however, your gravity will be lower, as you mentioned. What you can do is adjust your fermentables and hops accordingly. Software like BeerSmith or one of the online calculators will do that for you.

 

[frazier]

Your recipe will be based on creating a certain gravity with a certain amount of water. If the recipe specifies a 5 gallon batch size, that is what should go into the fermenter.

If you start the boil with 5 gallons, and lose .5 gal during the boil, then only 4.5 gal will go into the fermenter. You should add enough make-up water to reach your 5 gallon batch size.

 

[IrregularPulse]

What Frazier said. What part of Ohio?

 

[Wyobrew22]

Thanks for the advice guys. I'm located in southern ashland county....out in the boonies

 

[PT Ray]

Reminds me of when I first started all grain. I felt cheated to leave anything in the kettle and would throw it into the fermenter.

I've been doing 5.25 gallon batches which gives me just under 5 to bottle.