SunyJim
Active Member
Here's my typical brew day
When I brew, I use beersmith.
I have a three tier system. HLT is a 10 gallon gott cooler, Mashtun is a 10 gallon gott cooler, and I have a large 15 gallon boil pot
I fill the pot with total volume of water needed for the brew day measured cold in the brew pot and heat it.
Once at mash temperature, I use the markings in gott cooler to measure out mash water, mash in
then heat the water further to sparge temp, and pour the remainder in HLT. I don't measure, it's just the remainder from the original amount - mash water.
Then I run into my kettle and sparge until I get the volume beersmith tells me I should get.
The problem comes once I'm done my 60 minute boil and I chill it. It wasn't equal to what it should, and different size batches were wrong by different amounts
I do 6, 8 and 10 gallon batches. All these I struggled with beersmith to make my volumes jive to end with what I was after in the fermenter.
I ended up messing with trube volumes trying to make it right. Boil off is always the same so it wasn't that, there were missing liters almost a gallon that I had to adjust for in the larger 10 gallon batches
The problem is the initial measurement I do with a stick in the pot, the measurements on the stick were made with cold water. Water is 4% larger at boil then cold.
So if I measured my Sparge and Mash water at 10 gallons / 37.9 liters it expands as it heats to the 160F mash in and sparge temp expands to 39.4 liters (adding 3 Pints/1.5 liters)
when I add it to my gott cooler to mash in, the gott cooler has cold measurements as well, so although not critical I just reduced the mashwater by 2.5% and increased the sparge by 2.5%
When it comes to boil, beersmith is giving temperature adjusted volumes again, it adds in the volume of the sugar and thermal expansion, but again I'm measuring it with a cold measurement stick, and so now I'm off by 4% on my volume. I think I've just measured 8 Gallons / 30 liters to boil, but really I only have 28.8 Liters.
What I suggest is this, is that all measurements we refer to in our hobby should be done in cold gallons, not temperature adjusted gallons.
If we start messing with temperature adjusted gallons at what temperature would you mark your kettle? at tap water 60F cold water? 160F with 2.5% expansion? or boiling that's now 4% larger than the initial cold water?
wouldn't it just be easier to say gather your runoff until it says 9 gallons on the pot? Is it really 9 gallons, no. It's 7 gallons + sugar + trube + thermal expansion but who cares, we need a repeatable reliable way to measure the volume, because the goal is always the same in my mind. To end with the proper cold volume in the fermenter, and even more importantly to end with the proper bottling or finished volume.
When I brew, I use beersmith.
I have a three tier system. HLT is a 10 gallon gott cooler, Mashtun is a 10 gallon gott cooler, and I have a large 15 gallon boil pot
I fill the pot with total volume of water needed for the brew day measured cold in the brew pot and heat it.
Once at mash temperature, I use the markings in gott cooler to measure out mash water, mash in
then heat the water further to sparge temp, and pour the remainder in HLT. I don't measure, it's just the remainder from the original amount - mash water.
Then I run into my kettle and sparge until I get the volume beersmith tells me I should get.
The problem comes once I'm done my 60 minute boil and I chill it. It wasn't equal to what it should, and different size batches were wrong by different amounts
I do 6, 8 and 10 gallon batches. All these I struggled with beersmith to make my volumes jive to end with what I was after in the fermenter.
I ended up messing with trube volumes trying to make it right. Boil off is always the same so it wasn't that, there were missing liters almost a gallon that I had to adjust for in the larger 10 gallon batches
The problem is the initial measurement I do with a stick in the pot, the measurements on the stick were made with cold water. Water is 4% larger at boil then cold.
So if I measured my Sparge and Mash water at 10 gallons / 37.9 liters it expands as it heats to the 160F mash in and sparge temp expands to 39.4 liters (adding 3 Pints/1.5 liters)
when I add it to my gott cooler to mash in, the gott cooler has cold measurements as well, so although not critical I just reduced the mashwater by 2.5% and increased the sparge by 2.5%
When it comes to boil, beersmith is giving temperature adjusted volumes again, it adds in the volume of the sugar and thermal expansion, but again I'm measuring it with a cold measurement stick, and so now I'm off by 4% on my volume. I think I've just measured 8 Gallons / 30 liters to boil, but really I only have 28.8 Liters.
What I suggest is this, is that all measurements we refer to in our hobby should be done in cold gallons, not temperature adjusted gallons.
If we start messing with temperature adjusted gallons at what temperature would you mark your kettle? at tap water 60F cold water? 160F with 2.5% expansion? or boiling that's now 4% larger than the initial cold water?
wouldn't it just be easier to say gather your runoff until it says 9 gallons on the pot? Is it really 9 gallons, no. It's 7 gallons + sugar + trube + thermal expansion but who cares, we need a repeatable reliable way to measure the volume, because the goal is always the same in my mind. To end with the proper cold volume in the fermenter, and even more importantly to end with the proper bottling or finished volume.
