quote:
Take my brewing for example. My last 2-3 batches i've been short on wort volume at fermenting time. If i can get my evaporation rates calculated properly, i may be able to fix this. This could mean scaling my recipe up to 5.5 gallons

In your cases though, had you ended up with 5 gallons of wort your OG would have been significantly lower than you wanted, meaning that you didn't pull off enough sugars from your mash. the fact that you didn't have enough sugars in your wort has nothing to do with the boiling and transferring to the carboy/bucket. It all has to do with your mashing/sparging technique.

Because what you will do to fix it is add more water to your mash/sparge which will only dilute the wort. So you can either determine why you aren't pulling out more sugar or add more grain to compensate for the lack of mash efficiency.

This post was edited on 3/6/13 at 11:19 am

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Posted by BugAC

St. George

Member since Oct 2007

52943 posts

Posted on 3/6/13 at 11:21 am to Fratastic423

quote:
In your cases though, had you ended up with 5 gallons of wort your OG would have been significantly lower than you wanted, meaning that you didn't pull off enough sugars from your mash. the fact that you didn't have enough sugars in your wort has nothing to do with the boiling and transferring to the carboy/bucket. It all has to do with your mashing/sparging technique.

Again though, i don't think i can say that definitively without brewing again with that adjustment.

Also, how much wort do yall collect pre-boil? I collected 6.5 gallons the last couple boils, and it is where i come up short.

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Posted by BugAC

St. George

Member since Oct 2007

52943 posts

Posted on 3/6/13 at 11:23 am to Fratastic423

quote:
Because what you will do to fix it is add more water to your mash/sparge which will only dilute the wort.

Well you see, that's the thing. I could have collected more without adding more sparge water. I had a bit more sparge leftover on top my grain bed, and i believe i could have easily gathered another 1/2 gallon or more to the wort.

I guess this is where i think that my efficiency might not change as much, because i'm still extracting the sugars. I understand if i'm upping my sparge volume.

Again, I think i will only know for sure when i brew my next batch.