{"id":19,"date":"2012-09-05T02:00:23","date_gmt":"2012-09-05T02:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thebottlefarm.com\/blog\/files\/8575136ea9bd0df13e0da93a0a1a845c-22.php#unique-entry-id-22"},"modified":"2013-04-13T15:08:15","modified_gmt":"2013-04-13T15:08:15","slug":"troubleshooting-my-homebrew-volume-into-the-fermentor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/troubleshooting-my-homebrew-volume-into-the-fermentor\/","title":{"rendered":"Troubleshooting my homebrew: Volume into the fermentor"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you start brewing there are issues with your process that will pop up from time to time, and you\u2019ll have to figure out ways around them, or how to better deal with them. I\u2019m a tinkerer always looking for a more efficient way, or method to make it better. The biggest issue I\u2019m facing right now, is too little wort making it into the fermentor.
\nThis problem started when I went full volume boil. When you are doing partial boils it\u2019s easy, pour, and top up the carboy to the 5g mark. However, the last two batches have been full volume boils, the <\/span>oatmeal stout<\/a><\/span> and the alpha king clone (which I never wrote up) have had post boil volume issues. I ended up topping up the alpha king, but left the oatmeal stout at a higher gravity.
\nFirst step in fixing a problem it is identifying why it is this happening? First major issue is not knowing the volume in the boil kettle. Second issue is not knowing my boiloff rate. It\u2019s hard to estimate w\/out testing, and even harder to estimate w\/out markings on your boil kettle. This part is simple, fix the first then I can calculate the second.<\/span><\/p>\n

The second part of my volume off issue is trube losses before and after the boil kettle. I feel like I\u2019ve been losing a lot of wort to hot and cold break and hop sludge. I\u2019ve found it hard to whirlpool \/ chill and allow the beer to settle so I don\u2019t leave a ton of wort behind. Currently I transfer wort using a ball valve w\/out any filtration. If I\u2019m not patient, and don\u2019t whirlpool after cooling, a lot of this trube will come along during transfer to the fermenter. The alternate is worse, basically leaving all the trube and large quantities of wort behind.
\nSo what am I doing to try to address the problems? First, I\u2019ve purchased a stainless ruler, which will allow me to determine the volume of water in my kettle. A simple volume equation showed me that one inch =.76 gallons in my kettle. Now I can calculate volume, I can measure boil off, and should allow me to configure the proper profile in beer smith. In addition to this, I plan on scaling the recipe 20%, aka making it a 6 gallon wort recipe, with hopefully 5.5 making it into the fermentor.
\nTo help stem trube losses, I\u2019ve purchased a dip tube, when installed, this should allow me to pick up the wort well below the ball valve level, and prevent me from having to tip my kettle to get the remainder out. I\u2019ve heard that you can use a chore boy at the end of the dip tube, to provide a corse filter as well. Alternately, I am considering picking up a bazooka tube, if the dip tube doesn\u2019t work out.
\nI will update when I brew my next batch, if the correctly measured additional volume, and the dip tube works out. Then we can move on to other problems like, floaties after dry hopping, or finding more time to brew.<\/p>\n

PS. I unfortunately don\u2019t have any photos of the trube, either in the fermentor, or bottle of the kettle, perhaps because I\u2019m too annoyed to take one, but trust me, it\u2019s there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As you start brewing there are issues with your process that will pop up from time to time, and you\u2019ll have to figure out ways around them, or how to better deal with them. I\u2019m a tinkerer always looking for a more efficient way, or method to make it better. The biggest issue I\u2019m facing right now, is too little wort making it into the fermentor.
\nThis problem started when I went full volume boil. When you are doing partial boils it\u2019s easy, pour, and top up the carboy to the 5g mark. However, the last two batches have been full volume boils, the oatmeal stout and the alpha king clone (which I never wrote up) have had post boil volume issues. I ended up topping up the alpha king, but left the oatmeal stout at a higher gravity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[31,30,81,80],"class_list":["post-19","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-projects-and-thoughts","tag-knockout","tag-troubleshooting","tag-volume","tag-wort"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}