Spot29er

Recipes 

I just finished my first all grain brew. I thought all was well until my final volume was about a half gallon off. I was doing a 6 gallon batch. Plus my gravity was a little high, I was hoping for 1.060 and ended up with 1.064. Can I just add some water?

WillPall

Recipes 

Not bad at all. Gratz on your first AG.

You can definitely add water, but I don't know how low the gravity will fall with just a half-gallon. I know there's a formula/calculator for figuring that out, but I can't find it right now. I'm thinking that will drop your gravity by around 0.003. Maybe someone else on here knows the formula.

I'm also assuming you haven't fermented the beer yet. Adding water afterwards can be a little tricky because of oxidation.

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Frank99

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I wouldn't add water. 1/2 gallon "off" on 6 gallon batch is nothing. It sounds like you were more efficient than planned, so congrats. You'll have to adjust the pre boil volume going forward based on your setup and the amount of hops used (hops absorb a lot of wort so if you're doing a heavily hopped IPA you'll need a little more pre boil volume). Good job!

samc

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4 points is nothing, proceed as is IMO. I wouldn't make any adjustments with future brews until you repeat the same results several times.

Revvy

Recipes 

Yes the magic of brewing is that if you are off in your volume you are off the exact number of gravity points that you will regain if you replace the wort. The wort concentrates as you boil and re-diluting it to the correct volume brings you back to the right gravity.

That is if you started at the correct pre-boil gravity to begin with.

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