Total noob question here, but I’ve seen a lot of people talking about and noticed on some pitching rate calculators that default batch values of 5.25 gallons or 5.5 gallons are shown. Are all the 5 gallon kits on NB really 5 gallons? or do I need to be adding water to get it to say, 5.25 gallons? and THAT’S what we’re calling 5 gallons batches? Any help is welcome.
Thanks!
Travis
Some brewers use enough water to have a little over 5 gallons in the fermenter so that after trub loss there is still 5 gallons left. You can adjust the amount of fermentables to accommodate this, but I don’t bother.
The extra volume over 5 gallons may be for starter wort that was also pitched with the yeast.
Once I added extra volume to account for the volume of loss due to the trub layer. I did this only once. That beer tasted watered down. I prefer full flavor and will take a couple fewer filled bottles.
Yeah, in creating a recipe, I plan for 5.25G into the bucket, knowing that will give me pretty darn close to 5G when bottling. After a couple of batches, you’ll be able to figure out your typical loss, which varies with everyone’s systems and techniques.
Thanks for all the replies! Much appreciated. It makes sense now.
