So my gravity is a little high... (correction options?)

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andrewbrews

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Last weekend I was working on one of my fine Andy Dandy's IPA's and low and behold I get to the end of it, take a gravity, and find that i have overshot my target by about .02. My target was 1.062 and I ended at 1.093. At first I thought I had somehow found a way to boost my efficiency from 65% to 90%.

What really happened is that I mistook a 5lb bag of corn sugar for a 2lb bag of corn sugar. Dumb I know, but I was looking at all the beautiful hops that were about to go in.

So now to my question. I would like to somehow make this beer drinkable. I have a beer right now that is going to net around 12% give or take. With the bitterness profile and aroma hops, I think I need to get it down to around 9% and then dry hop like crazy.


Any and all ideas are appreciated.
Can I simply add boiled and cooled H20? I know my volumes will be screwed up, but I want to try and salvage it. If I do add water, should I also add some Yeast just in case it starts to peter out to sweet?

Some other vitals from Beer Smith
12 lbs of total grain
65 IBUS
2.5 oz of late addition Citra and Simcoe

Plenty of hops (Citra, Amarillo, Simcoe, Mosaic) to dry hop with.
 
Thanks for the BeerSmith tip. I have just started using it and had no idea. I am also intrigued about the idea of brewing a session IPA to bring it down. I think diluting with water is reasonable since all my hop addition rates were based on the the OG being 1.062. I added the sugar late, so I don't think my utilization will be impacted. My only concern would be the body. Is there enough malt in there to hold up against the alcohol and hops or will it taste watered down? I need to add about 2 gallons to bring it down to a reasonable amount.

One question I have about brewing another batch and blending. This might seem a little dumb, but how exactly do you recommend blending when all I have are 5 gallon buckets? If I do 1/2 and 1/2 into a bucket and then transfer that to a keg, it seems like an awful lot of potential oxygen being introduced. If I mix directly into kegs, will I get adequate mixing? Lastly, if I blending 10 gals into 5, how do I ensure equal mixing? I guess it's better than one really high IPA, but having a 1/5 IPA and a 3/4 IPA isn't really what I am looking for. Again, not a terrible problem to have 10 gallons of two different IPA's. :)

I guess it just depends if I want to brew again... Decisions, decisions.
 
I would taste it after fermenting, with that much sugar it could significantly affect the beer, it could be so cidery as to be undrinkable. 20% is an oft cited limit.
 
andrewbrews said:
Thanks for the BeerSmith tip. I have just started using it and had no idea. I am also intrigued about the idea of brewing a session IPA to bring it down. I think diluting with water is reasonable since all my hop addition rates were based on the the OG being 1.062. I added the sugar late, so I don't think my utilization will be impacted. My only concern would be the body. Is there enough malt in there to hold up against the alcohol and hops or will it taste watered down? I need to add about 2 gallons to bring it down to a reasonable amount.

One question I have about brewing another batch and blending. This might seem a little dumb, but how exactly do you recommend blending when all I have are 5 gallon buckets? If I do 1/2 and 1/2 into a bucket and then transfer that to a keg, it seems like an awful lot of potential oxygen being introduced. If I mix directly into kegs, will I get adequate mixing? Lastly, if I blending 10 gals into 5, how do I ensure equal mixing? I guess it's better than one really high IPA, but having a 1/5 IPA and a 3/4 IPA isn't really what I am looking for. Again, not a terrible problem to have 10 gallons of two different IPA's. :)

I guess it just depends if I want to brew again... Decisions, decisions.
Click to expand...

Cyclman said:
I would taste it after fermenting, with that much sugar it could significantly affect the beer, it could be so cidery as to be undrinkable. 20% is an oft cited limit.
Click to expand...

I would agree to taste it before doing anything. That much sugar could easily be problematic. That sugar will already make the thing really dry and light, and watering it down may only take a subpar beer, and make an even worse watery subpar beer. You'll need to build back up the supporting malt character somehow, that is if it's even worth salvaging.

I would suggest getting a few graduated cylinders. Stick your current one in secondary after fermentation. Meanwhile, make another small IPA, and then after that's fermented, take and carefully blend together various ratios until you find the combo you like the most. If it's substantially more of the smaller beer (which may well be the case), then I'd go ahead and make a second batch of it, or however much you need, and then mix directly into kegs at whatever ratio you thought was the best. I think if it's given enough time to sit, and with the spinning while racking, you should be ok mixing wise.
 

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