Adjust for gravity or volume?

[tominnyc]

Hi all,

I'm new to this forum and would like to say that I've already learnt a lot from reading your posts. I recently started brewing because I moved from the UK to New York and as much as I don't mind American beer, I get real cravings for a good pint of bitter.

This evening I brewed the Exe Valley Autumn Glory out of Graham Wheelers book. I used the recipe for 19 litres, though realised that my stock pot is a bit on the small side. There's probably about 14 litres of wort in the fermentation bin at the moment. In the morning, once it's cooled, should I be aiming to get the exact figure for the original gravity (and thus not filling up to exactly the--calibrated--19 litre mark), or should I be more concerned about getting the correct volume? I'm assuming that the two won't be exactly in line with each other.

Your advice will be greatly appreciated.

Tom

[Rookie]

Hi all,

I'm new to this forum and would like to say that I've already learnt a lot from reading your posts. I recently started brewing because I moved from the UK to New York and as much as I don't mind American beer, I get real cravings for a good pint of bitter.

This evening I brewed the Exe Valley Autumn Glory out of Graham Wheelers book. I used the recipe for 19 litres, though realised that my stock pot is a bit on the small side. There's probably about 14 litres of wort in the fermentation bin at the moment. In the morning, once it's cooled, should I be aiming to get the exact figure for the original gravity (and thus not filling up to exactly the--calibrated--19 litre mark), or should I be more concerned about getting the correct volume? I'm assuming that the two won't be exactly in line with each other.

Your advice will be greatly appreciated.

Tom

Lots of brewers boil smaller volumes then top off in the fermenter to the volume they want.
You don't want to let your wort cool overnight. Cooling it down to yeast pitching temperature as quickly as possible will give you way better results.

[tominnyc]

Thanks for the reply, Rookie. I decided to top up to the specified volume since I realised that the recipe isn't conceived only to produce a specific gravity; the amount of hops, for example, have been specified for a certain volume. As it happens, I wasn't too far off and it's fermenting nicely. There have been no problems letting the wort cool overnight. If it's good enough for Graham Wheeler, it's good enough for me.