A question of quantity!?

[DeadlyGoldfish]

I've done a few kits now and all turned out ok thus far, but I have been thinking in my moments of drinking about the instructions on the packaging...

It states...

"2 litres of water to start with and add the can of malt" then

"Make up the volume to 22.5 litres", now what I have been doing is adding 20.5 litres of water, BUT should I be subtracting the amount of malt from the tin and only add water to make the final total in the fermenter to be 22.5 and NOT making the total amount of liquid I have added equal 22.5.

What I haven't done thus far, which I know is a mistake, is marking my fermenter properly with my own measurement on the outside so I can see what amount of liquid is inside. I shall be doing this today to make life easier after reading some books etc (simple things never occur to such "complex" minds!).

Any how, thoughts on the quantity of water please.

Thanks,

[Lillywhite]

I do exactly what you do and ignore the volume of malt extract which I assumed dissolves in the 40 pints of water.

Maybe I'm ending up with 42-43 pints but my original SG reading seems OK.

[Ditch]

Archimedes Theorem job, isn't it? Put malt in water and ye Are increasing the volume of the mass. The malt doesn't just go somewhere

That's why I'd always count that as part of the final volume I'm looking for.

Only, I'm a bit of a bugger and will usually stop a bit short of the complete five gallons. With my brews; 'Less Is More!'

[Lillywhite]

Archimedes Theorem job, isn't it? Put malt in water and ye Are increasing the volume of the mass. The malt doesn't just go somewhere

That's just what my wife said.

Guess I ought to accurately measure 40 pints on the side of my FV.

[KevP]

With my brews; 'Less Is More!'

Ditto

[mat69]

"Make up the volume to 22.5 litres", now what I have been doing is adding 20.5 litres of water, BUT should I be subtracting the amount of malt from the tin and only add water to make the final total in the fermenter to be 22.5 and NOT making the total amount of liquid I have added equal 22.5.
are you trying to confuse us on purpose

[Lillywhite]

"Make up the volume to 22.5 litres", now what I have been doing is adding 20.5 litres of water, BUT should I be subtracting the amount of malt from the tin and only add water to make the final total in the fermenter to be 22.5 and NOT making the total amount of liquid I have added equal 22.5.
are you trying to confuse us on purpose

That's clear to me. All he's saying is that he adds 20.5 litres to the initial 2 litres that he boils and mixes with the malt extract without deducting the volume of the malt extract, which dissolves.

The safest thing to do, which I did yesterday on the Stonewall Bitter that I started, is to accurately mark a 40 pint (22.73 litres) line on the side of the FV.

The scale on the Youngs FV, despite having a disclaimer, was very accurate.

[mat69]

yes thank you professor lillywhite,we all understand wot he meant but wot had me scratchin me head was why?does it say on the tin that you have to account for the volume of the tin or does it just say top up to 22.5 litres?why complicate something so simple or am i missing the point here

[b.all]

though the malt doesn't just disappear completely when you add it to the water the volume of 2 litres of water and a litre of malt is not just 2+1=3 as you get the malt sugars dissolving in the malt and therefore taking up less space by adopting a closer molecular structure. you can see a fairly extreme example of that sort of principle if you add water to icing sugar you can end up with a smaller resultant volume than the volume of sugar you started with.