My current process is to steep my grains in a smaller volume of about 1 gallon per pound of grains. I have 5.5 gallons of water on a propane burner heating up while I steep. After steeping I add the grain tea into the main boil giving me 6.5 gallons less the grain soak up. Then after bring to a boil I add the extract. Does anyone account for the volume increase from the extract? How is the volume calculated? Looks like 6 lbs of LME comes in a 1/2 gallon container.
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Not sure. But dont think it matters. Think you got about 10% boil off. Of the the wort liqued on the end. Me start. At 5 gall boil. And a mini mash of grains. Separate. Kettle 1.5 gallon. After 50 min mash add it to the 5gal. And start my boil once done after. 60 min i do end up with. 5 gallons of wort
You will have to account for the volume of LME. Rinse yer jugs off well, then when filling yer kettle, put the container(s) into the kettle and git to yer volume. Pull out the jugs and continue yer brew day… Again, this will take a bit of adjusting and tinkering to figure yer final post boil volume. Sneezles61
I thought extract brewing you just topped off when you were done so why would it matter
Ive been doing full boil extracts. If I have to top off its very little. I have never adjusted my water volume for the amount of LME and my brews have all turned out fine. I never even thought about it but I guess it does make sense. I too steep in about one gallon of water to a lb of grain and add that to the brew kettle. I get the kettle going with about 5.5 gallons of water before adding and with the steep it brings it up to 6.5, maybe a little under because of boil off. Bring it up to a boil and shut it down and add the LME. When the LME is added it does bring the water volume up quite a bit depending on the amount but it all seems to settle back and boil off in a hour boil. That’s my experience but I only have 9 brew days under my belt. I usually end up with about 5 gallons of wort or maybe just under that slightly.
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Wouldn’t it make you worry about a possible bug gittin’ into the mix? I remember way back, I did some of that, but time and some plotting and scheming eliminated the need to top off… Again, 15 years or so ago? Sneezles61
The reason I’m asking is I’m trying to figure out how much water I can boil and still hit my gravity.
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Knowing what points per, pound or quart, of yer DME,LME, will help yer equation, and I see from another post, yer spot on with liquor volumes. I don’t suspect efficiency will weigh in, like it does with all grain… And how vigorous you boil. Sneezles61
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Still think adding the lme should not matter on the water part to get the 5 gall. Me use half the lme. And the other half. 20 min on the end. I do end up with 5 gal. Dont have to add water. And end up with the right og. But lately do a mini mash and add a one pound. Extra grains. To my extract brew
If you got a bug in your drinking water you got problems. If your collection vessel is clean no problems. Or just buy spring watet
Just seems that some mold/bacteria may collect on the screen of the faucet, and may not bum you out, yet with something to give it a chance to grow, well… I will do all I can to keep it as sanitary as I can… not wanting to take a chance. Sneezles61
Probably not. I used to do water tests for construction. We would just give a little squirt of chlorine for good measure. Besides when you dump your faucet water into 112 degree wort I think your safe. Never pegged you as the paranoid type @sneezles61
Not really paranoid, I put some time into brewing, just don’t much like when a brew goes awry… I do like the song tho! Sneezles61
Ive been using spring water to brew with. This will probably open up a whole new discussion of what is better spring water vs distilled I know. I did not calculate the difference in water for extract displacement and I have to wonder if because of the density of the extract vs the water if you can actually do that. Don’t know and what I have been doing seems to work fine. I have only not hit my OG one time and don’t really know why it happened but the beer still seems fine. It was the Chocolate Milk Stout and I bottled it up yesterday getting 16 of the 16.9 oz bottles and 28 12 oz bottles. The OG on that brew was supposed to be 1.051 and it came in at 1.046. Should be noted that this was the brew that for some reason I ended up short after the boil and had to add the most amount of top off water so far…being 6 pints. Always great reading on this forum and throwing ideas around.
Yeah from what I understand during the extract making process the minerals from the water are already in there. I’ve used spring, distilled, drinking, and a combination of two in my current process. About 50/50 distilled and drinking water. For some reason I don’t like the idea of steeping grains in distilled water.
My well water is very good to drink. I use RO and build up from there. We help you with yer question? Sneezles61
When I did extract, I started with partial boils, then it wouldn’t matter whether or not you accounted for the volume of the LME addition because I was topping up to 5 gallons in the carboy. Once I started doing full boils and was targeting a specific total post-boil volume because I wasn’t topping up, then I had to account for the LME addition by volume.
Rad
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Me do full boil. Do like it lots. Beter than adding water. Till so far hit the og everytime. Dont even count the lme. Still hit the five gal mark
I’m a numbers guy so I like to see how things are calculated. I guess what I’m asking is what formula is used to figure out gravity of an amount of extract in a specific amount of water. I’m talking preboil volume like 6.5 gallons so I have an idea on how diluted the gravity is before boil off.
I think I’ve found the answer. dry extract is about 44 points and lme is 36 points. So if I had 6 pounds of lme and 1 pound of dme it would be 260 points. if you take 260/5 = 1.052 which is what Sierra madre kit says. Looks like they don’t calculate brewhouse efficiency. Which makes sense for extract.
http://beersmith.com/blog/2015/01/30/calculating-original-gravity-for-beer-recipe-design/
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