So when I am sparging my wort and I hit my low end of gravity, 1.010 (temp corrected of course) but I haven't reached my boil volume what should I do? Add fresh water until I reach my volume? Or will that water down my finished beer. Should I just boil what I have and go with a smaller batch? I've been doing 2.5 gal batches and I ended up with a lot of hop and sediment in my fermenter due to the lower volume of post boiled wort. I tried using 3 ounces of hops, 2.5 were late hop additions and I almost settled for a 1 gallon batch due to all of the crap in my BK. I ended up just sucking it all out with the auto siphon and a lot of the stuff ended up settling out but I only got 2 gallons out of my batch. Anyway, any advise would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Top off water
- Thread starter schmeek
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
FairleighGoodBeer
Member
- Joined
- May 12, 2013
- Messages
- 23
- Reaction score
- 3
Personaly i have done both, cthis being transfering everything in my brew pot including the hop sediment into my fermenter. I have also filtered out most of the hop sediment in another brew. Either or, your beer should still come out fine. To help reduce disturbing the sediment when it comes to bottling day, so you dont get gunky yeast cake in your fermenter into your bottles try to use a siphon clip. My first time i accidentally sucked up a lot of the yeast cake and hops from the bottom but my beer came out ok...ish. Maybe adding fresh water though wouldnt hurt as long as you havent pitched your yeast yet. This is just my opinion maybe a veteran or more experience member can chime in here and give a third opinion.
Ideally your going to try to hit the target Original Gravity for the recipe. Take a preboil reading, take into account that a 60min boil will raise your gravity reading about .010-.015, then make the call whether adding top off is a good plan or not.
There are several things that could help with the sediment in your BK if you're not already doing them(certainly not all inclusive)
1. use a whirlfloc or irish moss in your boil
2. cool your wort as fast a possible
3. gently stir wort while cooling to create a whirlpool affect to accumulate trub to the center
4. use a bag for your hops during the boil (I use a 5 gal paint strainer from HD)
5. if all else fails, strain the wort as you siphon it to the fermenter with a sanitized paint strainer bag.
There are several things that could help with the sediment in your BK if you're not already doing them(certainly not all inclusive)
1. use a whirlfloc or irish moss in your boil
2. cool your wort as fast a possible
3. gently stir wort while cooling to create a whirlpool affect to accumulate trub to the center
4. use a bag for your hops during the boil (I use a 5 gal paint strainer from HD)
5. if all else fails, strain the wort as you siphon it to the fermenter with a sanitized paint strainer bag.
schmeek
Well-Known Member
Cool, thanks for the input. What is a siphon clip? Is that the cup-like thing that attaches to the end of the auto siphon? I think I just need to adjust my mash efficiency lower and add more base malt and aim for a higher pre boil gravity so I can add extra water to even that out. On a similar note, I start with 4.5 gallons of wort and after a 60 minute boil I have 3 gallons. Does that seem normal? I feel like that is a lot to lose. I have a 6.5 gal aluminum turkey fryer pot that is 16" tall and 12" wide (I think) anyway it's pretty narrow and I would expect that kind of loss out of a wider pot but I guess not? What is your boil loss on average?
I loose about the same to evaporation, but I figure on nearly 2gal loss between 1. evaporation 2. loss due to sediment in BK 3. loss due to trub in primary.
He's loosing it in the brew kettle,which means excessive boil off. Turn the heat down under the BK. Loosing 1.5 gallons is a lot. 1/2 gallon boil off is more normal. I like to sparge the drained mash wort up to 3.5 gallons for the partial boil,as I have a 5 gallon BK/MT. Loosing about 1/2 gallon to boil off over the 1 hour boil. Chill in Bk,but no stiring when the wort gets down close to 75F or so. I have a couple gallons of local spring water in the fridge a day or two before brew day to top off with. This not only gets it up to recipe volume,but gets the temp down to 60-61F or so. And my OG's are right in range,or a little high. Even after mad stirring for 5 minutes.
