Beer Engine 1.09 liquor volue - really basic question!

[Wontigonk]

I'm just restarting in home brewing - I used to dabble in kits, but am now maturing a Ruddles County clone made with a malt extract method. Please forgive a basic question.

I've found Graham Wheeler's Beer Engine 1.09, which looks really useful (your effort is appreciated Graham if you are reading this!). I'm going to have a bash at a recipe over the weekend, but I am limitted in vessel size for the boil.

I note that for a volume of 25 litres, there's a "total liquor" of over 30. I know its a really noddy question, but to avoid a messy "oops" on the day, am I right in thinking the difference is down to evaporation and what gets retained in the hops / malt (I'll be using bags for the boil)? In other words, is 30 lites the amount of water I need to prepare / treat?

Linked in with that, should I squeeze the hops bags after boiling to get the liquid out, as per tea bags, or just trust to natural drainage?

Many thanks in advance

 

[jamesb]

You want 30l of wort in the boiler. Some will evaporate, some will be retained in the hops and some will be lost to deadspace.

You could squeeze the hopbag if you really wanted to (some people even sparge their hops).

 

[Wontigonk]

Thanks Jamesb,

My "vessel" is a 20 litre pan - I've not invested in a boiler yet. I'll do what I did first time around - use 15 litres for the boil and then topup the wort with cold water. My main worry was that I was going to end up needing to accomodate more than 25 litres at some stage.

Thanks for the advice and reassurance. I just need to go and look up sparging now...

 

[jamesb]

Thanks for the advice and reassurance. I just need to go and look up sparging now...

It's a posh term for rinsing

 

[Wontigonk]

I have much to learn.

Right now, I'm going to learn what beer tastes like. Only 3 weeks to go and it'll be homebrew...!