Q1: When you all are entering information into a site such as http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe, do you all set your final batch volume and adjust your boil volume to give you the profile you are after? Q2: Is the boil volume the average during the boil? Say you start with 6 gallons and end up with 5 gallons. Would my boil volume input be 5.5 gallons?
Q1: I use batch volume as the final volume of beer I am shooting for. Typically 5 gallons as I have started to use Kegs. Sometimes I have a six gallon final volume because I have two 3 gallon carboys and I can split a batch to do something different with in secondary. Q2: I take the boil volume as the start volume of the boil. For me, this is typically 6.5 gallons, unless I'm doing a split batch, then it is 7.5 to 8.
Batch volume is what you want packaged. Average boil volume is exactly what you think it is, not start volume. That said, it mainly affects IBU calculations which are somewhat system dependent, so you need to get to know what the iBU number means to your system and tastebuds.
Thanks. On a related note: My last boil volume started with 6 gallons after mashing and ended with a batch size of 4.5 gallons. My only racking was from primary to bottling bucket (no secondary) so I didn't lose any racking to secondary. My carboy doesn't have fill lines so I don't know what my final boil volume was. It was a 90 min boil so I think most of my loss was evaporation. (lid off) Do you all boil with the lid on once the wort reaches a hot break and there is less chance of a boil over to reduce evaporation?
I always leave the lid off. I was told early on never to boil with a lid. I just always accepted that that was the way to do it. But, on my next batch, I'm trying something different. Some commercial brewers I talked to do whirlpools of about 30 minutes before chilling the wort. They use this post boil time to add late addition spices and hops while the wort is still hot enough to sanitize. I'm doing a maple nut brown and I'm going to add Fenugreek after the boil and I was going to use the lid to keep the bugs out.
