BeerBorg

RickBeer wrote:Anyone getting more than 53 1/3 12 ounce bottles from a 5 gallon batch has clearly made more than a 5 gallon batch

Or, they counted after consuming too many brews before counting.

Rick you are doing the numbers and 5 gals. will come out 53.3, but that's in a perfect world, do you always get 12 oz in a bottle? Sometimes and more then likely then not, more or less, but you are right on with the numbers..

I get exactly 12 oz in every bottle...

Mike, I'd be interested in knowing your process from mash to bottling, since you mentioned you may not be measuring your water volume correctly.

At the worst, you'd be making a slightly watered-down version of the beer, but you're still making beer. That being said, consistency is important, and being able to estimate volumes for mash, sparge, and pre- and post-boil are important, especially if you want to keep a beer in your pipeline as a "house" brew. There are lots of ways to help yourself with measurements and volumes.

Dave,
I followed the instructions which came from the kit:
Step 7: follow brew day schedule, steep grains 30 minute @ 150, boil add bitters boil 45, add flavors boil 10 mins, add remaining malt extract and finishings boil 5 mins, terminate boil.
Step 8: cool wort. Used ice bath and wort chiller - 14 minutes.
Step 9: I transferred to the fermenter and added water. Instructions said bring to 5 gal. Without measuring, I simply filled the fermenter to the top mark which is 6 gal.
Step 10: pitch yeast. Wyeast 1056- smash Pak activated 8 hours prior to pitching.poured over top .
Final gravity was within range, but I let ferment three full weeks.
Step11: transferred to secondary. I like my beer clean, so I primarily do this to filter. I use a mesh screen along with a micro screen coffee filter. Set another 3 weeks. Last four days I cold crashed.
Step 12: bottled.
Pre - bottling taste test was good , just a bit watery IMO.
I really appreciate your help with this.

Mike

Ah. I see, said the blind man to his deaf dog. It seems Step 9 is the bugaboo, but you're aware of that.

Yeah, a five-gallon carboy will actually hold something like six gallons. You need the head space for the krausen, and even then, you risk a blow-off if your yeast is really aggressive. If you're using a kit that instructs you to top off, as yours did, you need to be accurate, as you found out. If you haven't already, I'd advise you to get hold of a Sharpie and a milk jug and mark off gallon increments on that baby. Why they're not manufactured that way is a mystery to me. But ten minutes with a permanent marker and a gallon jug, and you'll never have to worry about it again.

The reason I asked is because volume can be one of the trickier aspects of this hobby. Everyone's equipment is different*, so your pre-boil volume needs to be one level, and mine needs to be another, and Sam over there, well, his needs to be yet another. I prefer to aim for a post-boil volume of somewhere between 5 and 5.5 gallons. I do full-volume AG batches in my fiver, and while I could top off, of course, I prefer not to. So I've learned what my mash/sparge volumes should be, and I've come up with measuring devices that allow me to estimate pretty accurately where I stand during the process. It's only a dowel with gallon levels notched into it, but I'd be lost without it.



*That's what she said

A dowel rod is a great idea. Thanks, Dave

The great thing about it is I use two brew pots; one for full-volume five gallon batches, and a smaller one for full-volume 2.5 gallon batches. So I measured gallon-by-gallon in each pot, and marked both ends of the dowel. One dowel, two measuring devices! Very handy during the mashing/sparging process.