Help please--unintentionally strong Schwarzbier--dilute or not?

Hey all--I'm in the middle of making my first schwarzbier--wort boiling now--and my gravity reading puts post-boil gravity at 1.062, which will result in a fermented ABV of about 6.8%.

The recipe called for hitting 1.055, but in adjusting for color (I wanted it darker), I forgot to track the gravity in Beersmith.

So, is this too strong for a Schwarzbier? I'm not going for a competition, but I want something that will still be smooth and not hit you over the head. Should I dilute? How to do that without affecting taste? Or leave as is?


Thanks,

CB

I would dilute it, but you are also going to need to modify your hop schedule to get the original bitterness. If it is too late for that, then maybe go half way. You can just add water to the fermentor at this point.

See here for details:
http://woodlandbrew.blogspot.com/2013/01/hitting-exact-original-gravity.html

Hey, thanks. I checked out your site and it is fascinating--looking forward to diving in. I didn't think to adjust the hop additions, especially because the hop schedule was for a 1.055 beer, even though I ended up with a higher gravity wort in the kettle, which I then diluted down. So diluting it down would have resulted in a correct BU:GU ratio, no?

Also, I pulled a gravity sample last week and it tasted spot on. So we'll see.

climateboy said:

So diluting it down would have resulted in a correct BU:GU ratio, no?

Click to expand...

I'm glad you liked the site! Maintaining the BU:GU ratio whn diluting is something I need to clear up on that page. If your final volume going into the fermentor is higher than your recipe called for then you need to scale up the hops in the boil.

Ah, ok. Well, given boil-off, the final volume ended up being pretty close. But as it is not a hop-forward style, and I had a 90 minute boil with the hops that I did put in, I think I'll be ok. I'd be more worried if it was an IPA or something like that.