I've done several batches of all grain brewing after being an extract brewer before that. I batch sparge and do 5 gallon batches. I'm still working out some of my issues and learning though. I have a 7.5 gallon brew pot and a 12 gallon mash tun. I can get all my mashing and sparging temps figured out and when I'm done the sparging I try to have between 6.25 and 6.5 gallons to boil. In the past I had a pretty good boil going and, after cooling it down and trying to leave the cold break behind, I ended up with only about 4.5 gallons in the primary. Since I want to have 5 gallons at the end I end up adding water which, of course, brings down the starting gravity. In the end, I'm not sure but I think all this does is maybe lower the alcohol content and make for a lighter bodied beer, maybe.
Today I tried to use a low boil so I wouldn't loose so much to that aspect. While using my wort chiller I saw a good amount of cold break forming and I thought I'd try the "swirl" method to get all the cold break to the center so I would hopefully be able to siphon off more wort without sucking up the break. Well, I guess I better go back and read about that method again since all it did was mix the break back into the wort.
Anyway, I siphoned off all I could leaving what cold break there was on the bottom and I was STILL at 4.5 gallons in the primary! Taking a gravity reading I had 1.040 when what I was shooting for was 1.042 - 1.044. Once again I added about a gallon of water and took another reading and it was about 1.030.
So what am I doing wrong to keep ending up having to add water to get my 5 gallons? Also, how do you folks handle the cold break after cooling down the wort?
Thanks.
Today I tried to use a low boil so I wouldn't loose so much to that aspect. While using my wort chiller I saw a good amount of cold break forming and I thought I'd try the "swirl" method to get all the cold break to the center so I would hopefully be able to siphon off more wort without sucking up the break. Well, I guess I better go back and read about that method again since all it did was mix the break back into the wort.
Anyway, I siphoned off all I could leaving what cold break there was on the bottom and I was STILL at 4.5 gallons in the primary! Taking a gravity reading I had 1.040 when what I was shooting for was 1.042 - 1.044. Once again I added about a gallon of water and took another reading and it was about 1.030.
So what am I doing wrong to keep ending up having to add water to get my 5 gallons? Also, how do you folks handle the cold break after cooling down the wort?
Thanks.