Water volumes

[The Idiot]

I don't know about most brewers, but one thing I seem to miss on occasions is the correct mash and sparge water volumes. I know what they should be, but due to a lack of attention and the fact that few measuring jugs are accurate, I tend to overshoot.

This weekend I was aiming for a final volume of 21 litres at 1.069. I actually expected the gravity to be higher as I had a few grain bags that had a little more than the required weight, so rather than save small amounts I chucked it all in.

I tend to shift water from the HLC to the mash tun using a jug. I always vow I'll buy a child's abacus and screw it to the brew stand so I can keep a tally of the number of jugs gone in. On Saturday I was doing the typical "is this 7 or 8?" and figured I'd best assume the lower number. I was thinking about monkeys, so it's easy to get distracted...

The end result was 32 litres at 1.050. Okay, it's not what I was aiming for, but I'm not too disheartened.

I'm trying to come up with a better way of checking water volumes, and as a metric thinker I'm guessing the best way is to weight the water from the HLC, unless anyone has a better plan (that doesn't involve calibrated flow meters)!

 

[Covrich]

Difficult because in the mix of a brew day counting a lot of this can easily miss a jug here and there.

Since I do full BIAB I had sometimes did the same thing with measuring out teh water the night before.. I calibrated a sight glass..

11 liters is a big deficit though, how did it come out that far out?

 

[strange-steve]

I was thinking about monkeys, so it's easy to get distracted...

:lol:

If your HLT is plastic how about some volume markers on the outside? Or if it's shiny then a home made dip stick works well.