Losing liquid

[neil007]

Hello all,

Ive just spent a few hours brewing a recipie from wheeler, to brew 23 litres. I started with 18litres of water and then added to bring to 23l at the boil. However, also kept topping up with hot water as it evaporated- including right at the end to make 23l. However, this still wasnt enough as I ended up with 18litres, the hops and malt at the bottom of boiler took up 5l.

So how do I ensure that I will get 23l? Top up during boil to 28 litres to account for the stuff in the base of the boiler?

Secondly, if I were to add more water now to the fermenting brew of 18l to make 23l, will this reduce the al. strength?

Thanks for any advice :

 

[Sean_Mc]

Yes its going to lessen the strength if you liquor back (adding water), but what was your target OG at 23lt and what is the SG at 18ltr?

 

[prolix]

the missing 5l will be in the hops and grains, next time you can adjust for this. If th e og is correct then just settle for the 18l if it is high you can add treated water to dilute.

 

[rickthebrew]

The forum calculators can help you out here - (link top left of page) you need to consider your dead space in the boiler, loss to evaporation and hops etc. I would typically want around 30litres in the boiler to end up with 23litres - this can be your sparge plus some more treated water to make up the quantity you need, everyone`s set up is different so it`s hard to give a conclusive answer - if you have 18litres take a hydro reading if its higher than what you thought than you can add some treated or cooled boiled water - you may have to comprimise with 20litres or a lower end alcohol result - depends what is more important for you.

Your post said you had malt in the boiler? How and what were you brewing?

:thumb:

 

[neil007]

Target OH was 1046 at 23l, its that at 18l
:wha:

 

[rickthebrew]

what temp is your wort at?

 

[Sean_Mc]

As Rick said you need up to 30ltr to end up with 23ltr, but I think you may have sparged a bit quick and left the needed sugar from the grains to get up to your OG at 23ltr.

Sparging can take anything up to an hour, saying that you have wort now that will make lovely beer

 

[neil007]

ah pitched at 30c

its an extract brew

 

[rickthebrew]

OK if its extract i`m not sure what could of gone wrong - you could add some water and more malt if you wanted - did you use liquid malt or spraymalt? You might be a few points higher as 1046 @ 30 degrees with a hydrometer calibrated at 15 degrees is 1050 - forum calculator has an adjustment for temp

But you still have a nice lot of beer brewing and extract recipes can be pretty good :thumb:

 

[neil007]

its DME

 

[rickthebrew]

you can add some more if you want - but i`d just leave it myself :

 

[neil007]

cheers

im sticking with it - do i assume it will be stronger than expected 4.6 or just weaker if i add water?

:

 

[rickthebrew]

what yeast are you using? If its say s-04 it`ll finish around 1008ish so with your SG of 1050 and finishing at around 1008, 42 divided by 7.46 = 5.6%. :party:
If you`d added a few litres of water this would of brought your % down to around 4.6% as per the recipe so you were pretty spot on - just need to allow for evaporation mainly or just back liquor with cooled boiled water at the end :thumb:
Good work though