Adding water at priming

Hey all. I've got 4 gallons fermented and want to keg it in a corny keg. It is kind of strong and I want to add about a gallon of water which should fill the corny keg up. My quandry is this: I don't want to add any undue oxygen to the batch at this point or it may affect the crispness of the final product. Is boiled water highly oxygenated? Will this addition adversly affect my finished product? Any replies would be appreciated.

I don't know about adding water at this point, as I've never done it I'm neither advising or recommending against. However, I do know that water that has been boiled for a while is basically free of any dissolved gasses. So long as you cool and fairly quickly and add without reaerating it, I think you'd be fine.

keelanfish said:

However, I do know that water that has been boiled for a while is basically free of any dissolved gasses.

Click to expand...

This is what I was hoping. If I keg it with a full 5 gallons it should eliminate more air from the keg too.

Apart from adding more water to eliminate unwanted air space in the keg, is there an easy way to add CO2 from a cylinder into the headspace to eliminate oxygen. I'm thinking of simply sticking a hose from my cylinder into the headspace to displace the air. I believe CO2 is heavier than air so this should work. Maybe I'll just drink it like it is. Just a little more flavor is all.

You can do it. Boiled water is rid of oxygen, for all intents and purposes. Just transfer the water "quietly" so as to not introduce more oxygen.

Also know that it will dilute ABV, IBUs, and Gravity. You can calculate each of these with the following formula:

C1V1 = C2V2

C = Concentration (ABV, IBUs or Gravity- use whole numbers only)
V = Volume (in your case, V1 = 4, v2 = 5)

and just solve for C2

menschmaschine said:

You can do it. Boiled water is rid of oxygen, for all intents and purposes. Just transfer the water "quietly" so as to not introduce more oxygen.

Also know that it will dilute ABV, IBUs, and Gravity. You can calculate each of these with the following formula:

C1V1 = C2V2

C = Concentration (ABV, IBUs or Gravity- use whole numbers only)
V = Volume (in your case, V1 = 4, v2 = 5)

and just solve for C2

Click to expand...

which would be:

C2 = (C1V1)/V2

correct?

AZ_IPA said:

which would be:

C2 = (C1V1)/V2

correct?

Click to expand...

You are correct, sir!

I didn't bitter this batch a whole lot, so I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't whack it down then. Then again, couldn't I just boil some bittering hops in my additional water and adjust the alpha acids?