Total Volume of Wort

[earthwormgaz]

My stout at the weekend gave me about 10-12 litres of wort after sparging and everything.

I got eight out at first, left that boiling with the hops on the hob, and managed to collect a few more litres through sparging in the meantime.

I used the hydrometer, and it was reporting it'd be wine strength, so I must have gotten lots of sugar, and felt justified in topping it up to 21 litres with tap water.

Is this all okay? How much should you be looking at topping up at the end to make your 5 gallons?

I am planning to get a bigger pan to use as a copper so I can have more on the hob next time.

 

[RobWalker]

grab a calculator like beersmith. are you ag, partial, extract?

 

[earthwormgaz]

All grain, I followed a recipe suitable for 5 gallons/25 litres, but my wort ran very slowly from mash/sparge because I hadn't made enough slits in the manifold in the coolbox.

 

[Wendy1971]

if you top up with water make sure its been boiled first or you run the risk of infection

 

[earthwormgaz]

if you top up with water make sure its been boiled first or you run the risk of infection

Uh oh ...

 

[Runwell-Steve]

You should be OK topping up with Tap Water. Most kit brewers just use tap water and don't boil it.

Ideally for a 5 gallon brew you will have a 30 to 40 Litre boiler and then you can get the whole of the wort in the boiler pre boil.

 

[Wendy1971]

Think he said in previous post he was an all grain brewer not kits

 

[RobWalker]

Infections from tap water are very few and far between. Chlorine is more of a worry - it's much more likely to impart a bad flavour - you can treat it easily.

 

[Wendy1971]

still wouldnt risk adding tap water to previously boiled wort something we have never done

 

[Cussword]

Agree, but it's not the end of the world, no infection, just maybe an off taste. No serious harm done.
He'll know better next time :thumb:

 

[richc]

IMO topping up with water will be fine, don't worry about it...
Sound's to me like you didn't account for grain absorbtion when calculating water volumes. You can calculate this by hand but it's easier to use one of the recipe calculator tools to do it for you.

 

[earthwormgaz]

That sounds like a good theory yeah, probably lost loads to the grain. I'll need twice as much water next time probably. Still, I've got high hopes because of what the hydrometer said that it will come out drinkable. Hope that doesn't jinx it!

Does anyone know where to get a big catering size 20 litre pan for the stove at a good price?

 

[Wendy1971]

try e bay or second hand shops car boot etc

 

[earthwormgaz]

By the way, at 12 litres of wort, I made it out to be about 1080 on the hydrometer, so with the extra water I was down to about 1035 which is probably okay for stout?

I added some honey as well so that should have gotten the sugar levels up. I tried to check Monday night and I think it was down to about 1020 so it must have been going like the clappers, I timed the gurgling this morning and it was doing it about once a minute, so 3 days later it's still going strong. I'm unsure on that 1020 figure though, there was that much foam in there it was really hard to read, even putting the hydrometer in a tube and taking a sample, I couldn't get rid of the foam, and I didn't want to start blowing my contaminated breath in there :lol:

I'm considering adding more honey and strawberries to a secondary ferment of it at the weekend.

 

[guyb]

That sounds like a good theory yeah, probably lost loads to the grain. I'll need twice as much water next time probably. Still, I've got high hopes because of what the hydrometer said that it will come out drinkable. Hope that doesn't jinx it!

Does anyone know where to get a big catering size 20 litre pan for the stove at a good price?

as wendy said you can do car boots etc - I've not had much luck

I got my 32 litre alu one from Makro for £40

there is a site on ebay, search for cocotte on this forum on how to source

or use the maltmiller (forum sponsor) I'll be getting a 70L one from Rob

get as big as you can afford, 20L is quite small

or make one from a bucket in plastic with the kettle elements from the how to section.

I picked up a 60L bucket from http://www.fentonpackaging.co.uk/, you could use DVfuels etc

 

[WelshPaul]

Does anyone know where to get a big catering size 20 litre pan for the stove at a good price?

Asian/Arabic food shops often stock them. We got our 25l aluminium pot for £24.