slcdawg

Recipes 

Today I brewed a rye pale ale partial mash, full boil. I'm short on the final volume by about a quarter gallon. O.G. should be 1.053, instead it's 1.058. Should I top off, or just go with it? Normally, I would just top off but didn't have any bottled water. I can boil some water, but it will be added several hours after adding sort to FV. Can I still aerate it? Have not added yeast yet.

GilSwillBasementBrews

Recipes 

Yeah you could top off and then aerate or just go with a slightly higher ABV% beer. I'd probably just to with the stronger beer. Being as you haven't pitched yet I don't think it would hurt to too off either. Your choice.

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Bricks41

Recipes 

Such a small difference, topping off would be more trouble than it's worth... IMO of course.

emjay

Recipes 

It's really barely any trouble though. A tiny bit of work for a more precise result. It's up to each brewer whether or not they feel it's worth it. I would. Yeah, it's only 5 points, but adding water to a fermentor isn't terribly difficult.

slcdawg

Recipes 

Cool - thanks for the responses. Ended up topping it off before pitching. I need to work on my final volume calc - see what went wrong. This was my second full boil partial mash - first one came out on the dot.

whoaru99

Recipes 

So far on my first two batches I've topped off to attain OG, regardless of the actual volume.

The calculator I use says it takes about 0.45 gallon to go from 1.058 to 1.053 (assuming ~5gal batch).

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