Being new to all grain brewing perhaps I do not understand the recipe, when I made this yesterday I came up with about half of the volume of wort that is shown on the Beer Stats part of the page, "6.5 gallons pre boil", when I rechecked the recipe water it called for 17.5 qts of infusion water and 7.1 qts of Mashout -- so I must not understand because adding those two volumes together only gets you to 6.15 gallons of wort even if you ignore the 1+ gallon of absorption losses in the grain. Where did the extra water get added?
Water Volume Bill's Double Chocolate Milke Stout
- Thread starter FarmerT
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I don’t get too hung up on water volumes. I brew 2.5 gallon batches, so I try to end up with 3 gallons in the fermenter.
To hit your final volume, you need to know your boil-off rate for your particular equipment set up. Depending on the thermal output of your heat source, a six gallon final volume could need 6.5, 7.5, or something in between.
I start a little light on the water and add a little towards the end of the boil if needed. After a few batches, you should be able to see how your system performs and make adjustments more easily.
To hit your final volume, you need to know your boil-off rate for your particular equipment set up. Depending on the thermal output of your heat source, a six gallon final volume could need 6.5, 7.5, or something in between.
I start a little light on the water and add a little towards the end of the boil if needed. After a few batches, you should be able to see how your system performs and make adjustments more easily.
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As Bob said, it's easy to fix an underestimate of the amount of water: Just add water (dechlorinated and boiled, of course). It's harder to fix a miss on the other side - you need fermentable sugar for that. This equation is your friend: G1*V1=G2*V2 (gravity is measured in points, the digits of the SG to the right of the decimal multiplied by 1000). If your gravity is too high, the equation becomes V2=G1*V1/G2, then the amount to add is V2-V1. And I wouldn't worry about a point or two of gravity - my yeast always ferment out lower than predicted, yours may perform differently.
Ok, I believe I found the error in the published recipe, the total water called out is 24.6 quarts, and so no matter what you do you cannot end up with a pre boil wort of 6.5 gallons as you only put in 6.15 to start with.
If you use the online calculator and enter all the info except the water then use the auto calculate water feature you get approximately the same amount of the water for the Infusion of 16.2 quarts, but the sparge comes up at 19.1 quarts, NOT the 7.1 quarts as listed in the recipe. Thus the total water is actually 8.8 gallons and yieds a wort volume pre boil of 6.5 gallons.
If you use the online calculator and enter all the info except the water then use the auto calculate water feature you get approximately the same amount of the water for the Infusion of 16.2 quarts, but the sparge comes up at 19.1 quarts, NOT the 7.1 quarts as listed in the recipe. Thus the total water is actually 8.8 gallons and yieds a wort volume pre boil of 6.5 gallons.
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Not trying to hijack the post but have a question about the use of Lactose (Milk Sugar) in the recipe. Since this is a sugar and does not need amylase for converting is it just added to the wort after you have sparged over the grain?
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You can technically add it any time you want up to and including at packaging but to make life and calculations easier and to help with sanitation, I'd add it to the boil, say the last five minutes. Careful not to scorch it, though.
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Here's my take:
Many of the recipes you find on line are pure unadulterated BS. One of the first tests I use is whether the numbers are reasonable or not. If it fails this test, move on. The recipe was likely posted by a hack that couldn't fill a bottle with pi$$, let alone beer.
Many of the recipes you find on line are pure unadulterated BS. One of the first tests I use is whether the numbers are reasonable or not. If it fails this test, move on. The recipe was likely posted by a hack that couldn't fill a bottle with pi$$, let alone beer.
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So true.... If it doesn't pass the sniff test, it's not a Butterfinger.
