I put gallon markings on the sides of my fermenter, so I can pretty much estimate how much wort I'm dealing with. I also do full boils, starting with about 6-7 gallons of wort. By the time I'm done, something under 6 gallons is usually in the primary and I'll eventually end up racking 5 into the bottling bucket.

As for gravity readings, I used to take a lot of them. But then I realized it was more of a pain in the ass than it was worth, so I just wait and eyeball fermentation activity at the airlock. I take three readings: O.G. before pitching, when I rack to the secondary, and F.G. after adding priming sugar to the bottling bucket. I've never had a stuck fermentation, so I suppose I'm lucky in that regard--it might make me change my technique.
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that's a great idea. i may have to steal it :-) what'd you use to measure a gallon? I guess I could use the 1000mL flask i have but that'd take a while to fill.
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A plastic gallon-sized water bottle, or a milk jug would work--I sometimes use spring water or distilled water in my brews and had one laying around. I just put some painters tape right below each gallon line as I filled, and numbered it on the tape. I had to shine a flashlight through the backside of the plastic fermenter, to make sure of the level.

Your homebrew shop might carry clear vinyl stickers that work well on glass carboys. I think they're numbered 1 - 6, with plain line sticker for half-gallon increments.
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I used weight to calibrate the volume in my fermenters. I wanted 1/4 gallon marks so I built an excel spreadsheet that calculates the weight of 1/4, 1/2, and 1 gallon of water based on the temperature of the water.

For example:

1/4 gallon of 60 degree F water will weigh 2 pounds 1.4 ounces
1/2 gallon of 60 degree F water will weigh 4 pounds 2.7 ounces
1 gallon of 60 degree F water will weigh 8 pounds 5.4 ounces
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Guess I got lucky and the buckets that came with my kit had markings on the side. To fix our boil kettle measuring issue Matt and I just marked our mash paddle by scarring it with a knife.


Coffee question: I have a porter in primary and I'm going to add bourbon chips at secondary. If I wanted to add coffee should I add this at secondary as well? I have read that some folks actually brew the coffee and add it at bottling but I feel for some reason it would be better if fresh ground beans were added.
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Albert, I've done this three different ways

1. The first time was with a stout: I brewed an entire pot of Sulawesi coffee, cooled it, and added to the secondary. The result was bitter, oily and lacked head retention. It took years before that beer came around, fortunately it was high ABV. I still have 3 bottles left (from 1995...! :-)) The last time I had one, it was really good. After 15 years in the bottle, it's hard for me to open these--like that really expensive or rare cigar sitting in the back of your humi. One day.... :-)
2. The next two times were with a porter. Instead of hot brewing, I let some Sumatra coffee steep overnight in a French press. I added this at bottling and the result was much better than the first batch--good aroma & flavor, no problems with bitterness although I still had head problems. Maybe it's just a coffee thing, I dunno.
3. Last time, I cracked about 1/2 pound of whole beans inside a ziploc bag using a rolling pin, put them into a hop bag and dropped it into the secondary. Kinda like dry hopping with coffee. That did really well for aroma, but nothing really special in flavor. Probably have better results just mashing some roasted malt.

In any event, I would recommend sticking with a low-acidity coffee. Good luck!
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Maybe I'll try a combination of 2 and 3 for extra aroma :-)

Thanks Gerard
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Lack of head retention was probably due to the oils in the coffee. I have read that using oats will soak up oil and maintain head. Is most of the coffee flavor in the oils? Soaking them up might be a problem if it is.
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I used yet another method for coffee in my Imperial stouts:

I cold pressed coffee and added it at flame out and it sat through the primary and secondary stages. No coffee aroma due to primary fermentation results, but decent subtle flavor.
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I went a bit mad last weekend...
Creme Brulee Milk Stout
Flanders Brown
And
Nut brown ale with rum.

60 liters all up, exhausting but I can't wait to keg them all!!
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well I can finally post in here...first batch ever...went for a mini-mash right off the bat...5.5lbs grain bill + 3lbs LME. It was a lot of fun, deathbrewer's mini-mash technique worked like a charm and my mash only lost 2ºF over the course of an hour.

I'm hooked...can't wait to get this one out of primary and have another go!
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Lookin' good, Stefan! :-)

Today I'm going for my Hopslam clone, using yeast I cultured from the bottle newcigarz bombed me:

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It's a partial mash, too, so I better get started!
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Bottled a Sierra Nevada Pale clone 9 days ago. This morning I was walking up the stairs past the rubbermaid tote I keep my filled bottles in and all of the sudden I want a beer. Open the top and there is a shattered growler. I've bottled my last two batches with unrefined raw sugar to get a little molasses flavor. First batch was undercarbonated so I added a 1/4 cup more. Guess that was too much. I cracked all the growlers to let some pressure out. Hopefully that saves the rest of the beer.
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Bottled a Surly Furious clone yesterday morning. It smelled really good. It looked a little cloudy racking into the bottling bucket, but hopefully it tastes as good as it smells.

I think the next brew will be a hefeweizen. I really like Paulaner hefe, so may need to shoot for something similar.
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Got the Hopslam clone in the fermenter yesterday around 6, and pitched the yeast starter. Already had airlock activity this morning, and it smelled pretty good :-) Here's what I'm going with:

6# LME
3# 2-row pale malt, U.S.
1# 40L crystal
8oz Cara-Pils
4oz Aromatic
4oz Honey malt
8oz malto-dextrine
24oz clover honey

Did a multirest mash on the grains (110/30min-140/20min-158/40min), and hit a gravity of 1.036, a bit higher than expected. I'll add the clover honey either to the primary after 3 days, or in the secondary.

Hop schedule:

Centennial 1/2 oz at 55min & 20min
Citra 1/2 oz at 45min & 10min
Simcoe 1/2 oz at 30min & 15min
Amarillo 1/2 oz at 5min

Will dry hop with 1/2oz Amarillo + 1.5oz Simcoe. IBUs = 72, which is in the ballpark for what Bell's reports is in Hopslam. They say that they use high-alpha US strains, and I figured they used a burst technique so hopefully I got it close. Except for the Amarillo, all the hops are 11-13% AA. It smelled and tasted great out of the kettle, so I think I'll be happy even if it's not a match!

OG = 1.076 without the honey, which is on target exactly for 1.087.

Fingers crossed that it goes well. I thought about splitting the batch and pitching half with WLP1 California ale, but I didn't. No guts no glory.
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My next project is building a cooler mash tun and hopefully upgrading to a 10 gallon brew kettle. If/when I get a new brew kettle I will probably install a weldless bulkhead with valve to drain the wort.
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It doesn't look like much now, but in a few months (with a little luck) this will be the beer we serve at my daughter's wedding. It's a Belgian Golden Ale. I used Wyeast's Trappist Blend, which includes Brettanomyces. This is my first time brewing with belgian funk. This should come out along the lines of Orval, which is liquid beauty in a bottle. I'm going to call it "Wedding Bells Belgian Ale."

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My crazy ass RIS is almost ready for secondary. I'll move it next weekend.
I brewed it on 01/02/2011 and it weighed in at 1.121. I added an additional pound of honey after fermentation hit full bore.
Yesterday I took another SG reading and it is sitting at 1.035.
I'm going to secondary it for 3 months before bottling and letting it condition until Christmas.

I hope it turns out. :-)
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Whipped together my second batch yesterday, I did a partial mash version of this recipe from HBT:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f73/belg...-clone-137219/

Hit 1.087 OG...did a 24hr starter and 9 hours after pitch this thing was crankin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrkRBs3MF4I

That's probably 95% sanitizer...just some golden goodness burped down the tube into it.
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Did you use the WLP 500?
This yeast sounds pretty damned interesting.
Let us know how this turns out please.
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