Water Volume Calibration

[nifty]

Hi all

I was wondering how brewers using sight glasses or dip sticks etc in their HLT or boiler calibrated them. Do you use hot water ?? or cold to measure the depth.

If you are doing a boil with a target volume of 23 litres, then with a 4% cooling loss, nearly 1 litre is lost.

It's not much, but does anyone worry about it ?

cheers
nifty

 

[user 384]

Hi Nifty

If doing the claculations by hand, don't bother calibrating with hot water, just use cold. Then add any losses due to kettle dead space, chillers, hop back etc, then add an extra 4%. This will give you the volume you need to boil down to for 23 litres into the fermenter.

Alternatively programs like Promash can do the calculations for you.

Cheers
Mark

 

[nifty]

Thanks Mark

I use Beersmith and it does calculate, but as this will be my first AG, I was concerned that my estimates might be out e.g. evaporation rate. So if I use a dipstick, at least I will be able to make a more accurate estimate for the next brew.

Cheers
nifty