Under 5 Gallons After Boil and Weird Stuff Floating Around

[Soilworker]

Hey Everyone,

So I just did my first extract brew (well I did one about 3 years ago but this is the first one since then) and I have some concerns. I'm making the extract White House Honey Ale kit from Northern Brewer with specialty grains.

I started with 6.2 gallons of water but due to boil off i actually ended up around 4-4.5 gallons. My OG was 1.065 and I was targeting 1.062 but I'll attribute the higher OG to the boil off. I'm worried that after I rack off the trub I'll only have about 3 gallons of beer. Should I still rack to secondary or just bottle after 2-3 weeks in primary? Is the low volume something to be worried about?

I'm also worried about all the junk that ended up in the carboy. During the boil I noticed a lot of chunks floating around after I added the DME, LME, and hops and now its all settled in the carboy. I'm also worried I steeped the specialty grains incorrectly and maybe that's causing it. The instructions said to leave them in until the temp reached 175F. so I did that but they seemed mushy and I'm worried I just got unconverted starches and those are just floating around now.

Thoughts? Will it still turn out OK. Everything else seemed to go pretty well.

 

[Shred]

It'll all settle out fine. Why are you planning to rack before bottling? Unless you plan to add additional fermentables (fruit, etc...) no need for secondary.

 

[Soilworker]

I just heard that secondary was necessary for the beer to finish up properly and clear nicely. Thanks for the response.

 

[kingogames]

+1 Sounds like you're fine.

 

[unionrdr]

You don't need to rack to secondary to clear the beer. But you can if you want. It's up to personal preference,really. I don't rack to secondary unless oaking or something. Sounds like you had the heat to high & got to hard of a boil to boil off that much liquid. Turn the boil down a little to where it's rolling,but not too aggressively. I did that,& only boil off about 1/2 gallon over a 1 hour boil. You basically want to have 5 to 5.5 gallons left at the end of the boil for a 5 gallon batch on a full boil.