Low OG at 4.5 gallons..

So after reading a few posts here, I think I may have messed up...

I am brewing a Brewer's Best Weizenbier as my very first brew. Followed all the steps to the letter, but it said in the instructions to ensure that my OG reading was at 1.047 and to not add too much water as to fall outside of this. So I figured I would stop filling up at around 4.5 gallons and take a test measurement. When I tested, I got 1.040, so I didn't add any more water, stirred a little more, pitched the yeast and let it go.

I didn't shake the heck out of it or anything, so I think my low reading was do to getting more of the water than wort in my reading. If this happens to be the case, what will be the result of shorting my batch the extra .5 gallons?

Thanks guys, so far I'm having a blast. Hopefully this batch doesn't come out too bad!

Jon

Gosh, I'm sorry to say that not adding all the water will result in you getting...



Beer! It will be a little stronger and it might not taste quite the same but I'll bet you will enjoy it all the same.

I wish the kit makers would take out those instructions to measure the OG of your extract kits. If you use the correct amount of water, the OG will always be right but when you add top off water it is very difficult to get the water and wort to mix properly and then you get a bad OG and worry about the beer.