silly question. adding water after primary?

All grain ipa in primary for 1 and a half weeks. (4 gal). Can I add bottled spring water to increase volume to 5 gal when I transfer to secondary fermentor and dry hop?


Thank you for your time.

if you want to water down your beer then yes. If you are ever worried about your volume, you have to think of it prior to the end of boiling as all grain so that you can add DME. You have 4 gallons of drinkable beer, work on your process to get it so that you are able to hit your volume marks just right.

Thank you. This batch was a really late night adventure which was made while I
Was pretty buzzed. And made from (leftover) ingriedients from prior batches. Probably
Leave at 4 gal and see how she turns out. Thanks again

I would avoid adding water because it will have some O2 in it which could (and probably would) add a hint of oxidation to your beer. As suggested before, you need to add it before fermenting when the yeast will use the O2 for the growth phase.

Matt Up North said:

if you want to water down your beer then yes. If you are ever worried about your volume, you have to think of it prior to the end of boiling as all grain so that you can add DME. You have 4 gallons of drinkable beer, work on your process to get it so that you are able to hit your volume marks just right.

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Not necessarily. If you boil too much and come up short on volume, chances are you overshot your gravity too. You'll have 4 G of a higher ABV beer. You can water it down to get 5G of what you expected or leave. If you're worried about the O2 in the water, boil it for20-30 minutes to bring out the O2, the let it cool and siphon into secondary, then rack beer on top to mix.

How bad is the o2 in the beer? What I mean is does it make the beer taste bad or just give off an odd flavor... What would it do to the beer in short. Thanxs again 4 your time.

tyedyetrip420 said:

How bad is the o2 in the beer? What I mean is does it make the beer taste bad or just give off an odd flavor... What would it do to the beer in short. Thanxs again 4 your time.

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Adding oxygen after fermentation causes the beer to oxidize, giving it a bad flavor like sherry or cardboard-like. I think it can also interfere with the keeping qualities, but I never kept one around long enough to see if that was true!