Whenever I end up doing 5 gal batches, I always end up yielding barely over 4 gallons. I credit this loss due to transferring my wort from my kettle to the carboy, and from the carboy to the bottling bucket. Is there any way to increase my yeild to approx. 5 gallons (end result), or should this loss be expected? I use the full boil method and start off with 6 gal. in my brewkettle. Can I top off my brew kettle at the end of my boil, or even add water to the 5 gal mark on my carboy after transferring it? I'm still learning the ropes, but I do have some books coming in the mail .
Full boils i've been starting with 6.5 gallons of water. After all of the steps I am getting 5 gallons of finished beer. When I calculate my recipes I set it as a 5.5 gallon batch.
It is fairly common to design for a six gallon recipe to end up with five gallons when packaged for the reasons you note. That usually means starting the boil with seven gallons. However, if you are buying kits, you probably don't want to top up since that will mean diluting the recipe. A useful way to know if you can add water is to use a refractometer to measure how much sugar is in the wort. I got one off eBay for about $25. I use it all the time.
Scale the recipe up to a bigger batch - just enough to account for your typical loss. Yes, it's just that easy! Adding water will give you the volume you're looking for, but at a reduced gravity/ABV/body/etc. (though you might be surprised at how drinkable it still is - I've done it)
I always base my recipe on 6.5 gallon batch (or 11.5 if making 10 gallons). That gets me where I need to be after losses.
Boil 6.5 gals down to 5.5 gals once chilled, trub and hop loss of about .25 gals sending 5.25 into the fermenter, and .25 gals loss to trub and yeast should yield 5 gallons into the bottles. If you do a big IPA all bets are off since you will lose a lot more than .25 gals to the hops.
I don't really have any recipes (yet) as I'm still pretty new to this and currently using kits. I definitely dont want to comprimise quality (gravity/ABV/body), so if that means yielding a little less, that's what I'll have to do. I wasn't sure how adding water would work for a predetermined amount of ingredients that comes with a 5 gal kit.
Are you an extract brewer? If so, then the amount of ingredients (amount of malt extract) in a kit is for a 5 gallon batch. If after the boil you have less than the amount of wort you want it is perfectly acceptable to top off with water to achieve the desired amount (e.g., 5.25 gallons). Extract brewers often do a concentrated boil where the procedure is the top off with water in the primary to get to the desired amount. This is perfectly acceptable. Cheers!
