Missed my target volume big time!

Today I brewed denny's imperial oaked vanilla bourbon porter, scaled to a 8 gallon fermenter volume. I am just getting used to my new system and my target OG was supposed to be 1.078 and due to huge volume errors it ended up coming out to a OG of 1.1! Now this might not sound like a huge deal, less volume but stronger beer, the yeast I used (special London 1968) has a alcohol tolerance of only 9%. This means that the beer will only get down to 1.035. This is way sweeter than I was hoping for!

I see two options:

Dilute the beer in the fermenter with boiled and chilled water to a gravity of 1.078. When during fermentation would you do this?

Add a second higher alcohol strain of yeast when the first is dying due to the alcohol, such as US-05?


I would love to try to make this smaller volume, but higher alcohol beer using the second method, but I don't know how it would turn out with 2 different yeast strains pitched at different time in the fermentation.

I always keep bottled spring water around in case something like this happens on brew day. I just add it too the boiling pot if my OG readings are to high. A couple of points won't make a difference either way, but that far off the OG will not make the beer you were brewing. I would dilute the beer before fermentation begins. I doubt 05 would even get that monster down to something that won't taste overly sweet. Just my 2 cents.

I've heard of champagne yeast to bring the gravity down.

Having experienced this same issue, I've always wondered about diluting the hops while diluting the fermentables. Assuming you hit target volume with a specific gravity that is too high, wouldn't adding additional water create a less hoppy beer? How do you mitigate that?

brussum said:

Having experienced this same issue, I've always wondered about diluting the hops while diluting the fermentables. Assuming you hit target volume with a specific gravity that is too high, wouldn't adding additional water create a less hoppy beer? How do you mitigate that?

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Sounds like the OP's boil off was a lot more than anticipated. So, diluting will have some effect on the IBU, but compared to the OG/FG being that far off, for me I'd rather dilute. Hop utilization will be different, but not a ridiculous amount.

If you've overshot you OG and hit your volume perfectly, then your efficiency was better than expected. Then you will have to make a decision. Like you said, if you add water, your diluting the bitterness as well as the wort at that point. That's always a 'game time' decision. How much water if any at all to add? (Depends on how many beers I've had while brewing that usually determines what happens then.)

I personally would dilute partially. Get yourself halfway there as a compromise. That way the other potential problems will be subtle while addressing your primary issue. My reasoning is...there's no perfect solution, so go easy.