DOH! how do i fix this?!

So i am happily toiling away at a nice mostly extract lager.

Let the carapils go at 152F for about 40 minutes.

Added my bittering (1oz northern, 1oz Saaz) before boil started.

Added 5lbs of extra light DME and 4oz of corn sugar at boil.

Added whirlfloc and irish moss and yeast nutrients

Added 0.5oz of northern at with 15min left

Added 0.5oz of saaz with 5 min left

After boil dropped IC and watched the temp on the kettle steadily drop. Since i am outside, i put a lid on the kettle to keep leaves and stuff from dropping in.

Once the temp reads 75F I remove the lid and...

and...

a n d

Discover about an extra gallon of fluid in the kettle.

Apparently the IC had a leak at the hose clamp, that caused the coolant to leak back into the kettle. My FG ended up being 1.035 instead of 1.051.

I still pitched and placed in lager fridge, but i am hoping there is a way to fix this - somewhat. I have no DME or LME on hand to add as a late addition.

What advices to save this? Throw in 4 slices of rye bread? Dump a bowl of Cheerios in?

Help?!

Honey or corn sugar are your best options. I suppose you could also try plain table sugar.

Boil it down and then cool and re-pitch. Or brew another higher gravity batch and mix the two.

I'll just douse it in Alpha amalyse after 2 weeks of fermentation -- if i can get the FG to 1.003, then it will still have 4.5% ABV. It will have almost no bitterness, body, or hop aroma. I guess it'll be perfect for my BMC drinking friends...

That sucks! I would be worried about an infection from what might be in you IC hoses. I would have heated it up again to sanitize, but it might be fine.

If I were you I would brew up another wort and add it to what you have already. Calculate how much extract you would need to hit what you wanted your OG to be and add enough hops to hit what you wanted your IBU and flavor to be. I don't think you'll enjoy the beer if you add amylase, but I guess it could be interesting to see how it worked.

Good luck!

peterj said:

That sucks! I would be worried about an infection from what might be in you IC hoses. I would have heated it up again to sanitize, but it might be fine.

If I were you I would brew up another wort and add it to what you have already. Calculate how much extract you would need to hit what you wanted your OG to be and add enough hops to hit what you wanted your IBU and flavor to be. I don't think you'll enjoy the beer if you add amylase, but I guess it could be interesting to see how it worked.

Good luck!

Click to expand...

I have added 1/4 tsp of amylase to beer in the past. It essentially drives the fermentation further. No real taste difference, and only side-effect is less intestinal gas and bloating (maybe).

If I had ingredients on hand I would have fixed the batch -- but I don't expect to have any extra ingredients on hand for another two weeks or so. No point in trying to fix it then.