I had a question, when you factor in your equipment loss, do you account for the volume under the false bottom? Or if you have a home-made false bottom in a cooler, how do you account for loss? I expected to get 5.5 gallons on my batch tonight and got about 5.1 gallos.
You loss is what you can’t get out of your system. Looks like you have a real loss of .4g more than you anticipated. If you do everything the same on the next brew and get the same results, you know you need to adjust for an additional .4g loss.
Every system is going to be a little different.
Ok, but one other variable on the loss is the boil rate. It’s almost impossible to get the same boil rate every time, right? One day it may be a lighter boil than the next; that would affect your final output based on evaporation. I guess I will just have to keep really good notes and maybe put a dot on my burner valve where I want it to be so its the same everytime. Thanks for the feedback.
I thought your discussion was on getting your preboil volume.
Yes, boil off rates are always varied. Temp, humidity, wind, vigor of the boil, pot diameter are all variables that will effect the evaporation rate. If you keep the same pot and same flame, you still have temp, humidity and wind that will change things.
If you have to much liquid near the end, hold off on your final hop addition and boil for another 15 minutes with a higher flame.
If you see your volume is going down to fast, turn the flame down. You can also add some water at the end to bring the volume back up.
Remember, relax…
