Home Brewing Forums
Loss of volume from boiling
Sat, 12/10/2011 - 14:33
Just started the fermentation process for my first batch of homebrew. I followed the instructions from the malt extract recipe and it said to boil two gallons of water and have ready for the carboy to make up the remaining volume so it equals 5 gallons total with the wort. Easy enough, right? So I started boiling 3 gallons of water for the wort process, but after 60-65 minutes of boiling I realized that there is no longer 3 gallons of liquid in the pot! So when I poured the chilled wort and the pre-boiled two gallons of water in the carboy, it obviously came up shy of 5 gallons.
Is there an unwritten step somewhere in the home brewing world that says you should actually boil the wort in 4 gallons of water, expecting that a gallon or so will evaporate due to the hour long boiling process??
I rectified my issue by boiling additional water, chilling it down and adding it to the carboy so it equaled (give-or-take) 5 gallons.
Thanks!
Kevin
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Most people don't boil the water that's added to the wort unless you have really bad tap water. Just use a sanitary container to add it to the carboy. I start with 2 gallons of water in the carboy, pour in the wort and add water as necessary to reach 5 gallons. You want to stick with 3 gallons for the boil.