Hi all, I've brewed 2 batches so far with good results. I come up about 8 bottles short of 2 cases each time. Should I fill my carboy to 5 1/2 gal (I've done 5gal each time) or do 3 gallons in my brew kettle instead of 2.5 gallons?
Trying to get to 2 cases
- Thread starter kpipes68
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
Abrayton
Well-Known Member
I believe five gallons should get you around 54 twelve ounce bottles. Are you accounting for trub? How much beer do you leave on the yeast cake? It’s possible you have less than five gallons if you are filling your fermenter to the five gallon mark.
You're getting 40 bottles from your five gallon batches, which is eight bottles a gallon, whereas a gallon is the equivalent of about ten and a half 12 oz bottles. That means if you're actually getting five gallons in the fermenter (and not undershooting it because of incorrect volume markings, for example), you're losing about five quarts to fermenter trub, which is quite a bit. To get another eight bottles from a batch, you'd probably want to put an extra half gallon into the fermenter and find a way to reduce your trub a bit, which will depend on your current process (i.e. does your kettle trub and break material go into the fermenter? Do you do a lot of dry hopping? Are you using low-flocculating yeast?). Of course, the parenthetical aside about incorrect volume markings may well be a factor. If your trub is clearly well under a gallon every time you bottle, you're probably not actually getting five gallons into the fermenter, which will naturally reduce your yield (and somewhat strengthen the ABV of your product).
So:
If everything is linear, add an extra gallon to the fermenter, since you're getting eight bottles a gallon and you want eight more bottles.
If you can find ways to reduce losses to trub, that will allow you to reach your goal without adding an entire gallon to each batch.
And if you're doing partial boils, increasing the boil volume as you increase the fermenter volume is probably a good idea, but not crucial unless you're trying to achieve a certain level of bitterness. Think of it like this: your boil IBUs are limited to about 100, and then that will be diluted by your top-off water so if you're doing a half-size boil, you're likely to top-out at 50 IBUs in the topped-off wort, so you may have to increase your boil size if you're trying to make a particularly bitter brew.
So:
If everything is linear, add an extra gallon to the fermenter, since you're getting eight bottles a gallon and you want eight more bottles.
If you can find ways to reduce losses to trub, that will allow you to reach your goal without adding an entire gallon to each batch.
And if you're doing partial boils, increasing the boil volume as you increase the fermenter volume is probably a good idea, but not crucial unless you're trying to achieve a certain level of bitterness. Think of it like this: your boil IBUs are limited to about 100, and then that will be diluted by your top-off water so if you're doing a half-size boil, you're likely to top-out at 50 IBUs in the topped-off wort, so you may have to increase your boil size if you're trying to make a particularly bitter brew.
What does the recipe call as the OG for the batch and how does that compare with what you have going into the fermenter. If the recipe calls for an OG of 1.052 and yours is 1.060, you aren't adding as much water as needed which leads to fewer bottles of beer with more alcohol in each. (note that getting the correct OG for an extract batch that uses top off water is difficult as the water does not mix easily with the concentrated wort and needs to be stirred long and vigorously to get proper mixing) Do you want to reach the correct amount of bottles of beer or do you really like the taste and higher amount of alcohol of the smaller batch?
Great advice. I'm going to first check my volume marks and go from there. I have been moving from a 6 gal carboy primary fermenter to a 5 gallon carboy 2nd fermenter. I have a little bit extra room in the secondary but not much. Maybe I should skip the secondary?
Yeah unless your adding ingredients theres no reason to rack to a secondary. I will usually get 46 -48 bottles from a 5 gallon batch. Like was mentioned it depends on your process and dry hops adding ingredients that soak up beer .
Soulshine2
Well-Known Member
You would need 5 gallons of finished beer to get 2 cases. I generally get 2 cases plus 4 or 5 bottles. Each bottle is filled with a wand and the beer is filled just shy of the top of the bottle. when the wand is pulled out , it leaves the correct amount of space to allow conditioning. about 1 1/2 inches.
