Hop - Water absorption help

Greeting brew brothers!

This is my second IPA and only my 5th beer using BeerSmith.  The first IPA had a hop bill of about 5 oz for a 6 gallon batch.  In the end my final volume was short and it was obvious why when I observed the mass of soaked hops in the bottom of the brew kettle.

My other recipes with nominal hop bills have resulted in very accurate final volume matches.

Sooo, tomorrow Jan 24 I'm doing an Imperial IPA with 8oz of hops added to the kettle.  My batch size is 6 gallon and I'm guessing that if I really want 6 gallons to go into the primary I should scale up the recipe.
 
Question is to what size. As far as I can tell BeerSmith does not account for this or have a too to do so.  If not anyone have any estimates as to how much water 1 oz of hops will absorb.  (Perhaps I'll do little experiment tomorrow, nothing like empirical data)


Cheers, Joe

What type of hops you using? pellet, whole

All hops are whole leaf.

Thanks

Joe,

I looked in all the information I have and can't fine anything that talks about absorption of water by hops. That certainly doesn't mean that something is not out there.
What I have had to do in my settings is measure out my trub the best I can and get and overall for my "Lost to Trub setting". It varies at times from batch to batch but has work pretty good in getting me close to predicted amounts of wort going into my primary. When I use alot of hops I up my settings 1 or 2 quarts more, or what I've measured, and increase my 'Loss to Trub" and check "calculate boil volume automatically".
It might take a couple of test runs to get where you want to be but hey thats the fun of making beer.

Good luck

Jeff

Just to follow up my experience yesterday with hop absorption.

Barring any other miss calculations, I would "guess" that the 12 oz of hops that ended up in the brew kettle at some point, boil or steep, absorbed about 3/4 gallon of wort.  So that's about 8 oz of wort for every 1 oz of dry hops.

Next time I've got a big hop bill I'll try a trub adjustment based on my hop soak ratio.

On the next brew day, I might also just have soak a given number of oz's of whole leaf hops and measure the hop to water ratio for a more exact figure.

cheers

You could also create a new equipment profile. One for your regular beer and one for your extra hoppy beer.

sickbrew said:

So that's about 8 oz of wort for every 1 oz of dry hops.

Click to expand...

That seems about right. I have figured 10 oz absorption for each ounce of pellets.

Losses to high hop levels are just the cost of doing business.