Extract Boil Volumes

[roo_dr]

A simple question here, but one that has been on my mind for a while now, and a few searches have yet to answer it...

If I add 3kg LDME to 20L water for a boil, the total volume of the resulting liquid increases accordingly, to a final volume greater than the original 20L water.

So... Is the volume of the boil calculated as total pure water volume, or water volume with extract added?

 

[ekul]

That is an interesting question. When i was doing extract i would do my hops boil in 5L of water and add 500g of extract. At the end of the boil i would add all the ingredients (extracts and dex) and then top up to 23L with preboiled and precooled water. I would put a cube of wrt in the fridge overnight so that when i did my hops boil in the morning the preboiled water would be cool, and when i added it to the wort it meant that i would have my fermenter sitting at pitching temp straight away.

If it were me i'd do the boil in 20L water and then afterwards top up to final volume, because some water will be lost during evaporation. Actually if it were me i'd do the boil in 5L of wort and then top up with cold water.

You could do an experimetn and add 150g of dme to 1L of water and see how much it goes up, i imagine it won't be much. With liquid malt extract it probably increases in volume a fair bit, as it already has water in it.