40 oz short

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bluebrewer

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First timer here with a foolish mistake. A poorly marked measuring cup lead me to be 40 ozs short of the 5.5 gallons during primary fermentation (that's about 5%). It's been in there for 8 days with fermentation almost complete. Anyone know the effect on the beer? Can I add some/all of the 40 ozs at this stage? Any advice?
 
I wouldn't sweat it.

If you really want to go overboard you _could_ dissolve your priming sugar in the missing 40ozs of water and combine that with your fermenting beer in the bottling bucket. I wouldn't bother, but you may. Overall effect about nil either way.
 
I never measured to within a third of a gallon when making extract batches.
See, here's the deal: you got your sugars, you got your hops, you got your water, you got your yeast, right? All right. So you got your beer.


RDWHAMB (microbrew.. since it's your first batch)
 
Your beer is a little bit stronger than it would have been. Not a big deal at all. If you really wanted to get that missing 40 oz back, upping the amount of water boiled with your priming sugar as suggested by Poindexter is your best bet.
 
hey, i've gone into primary with just 4.25gallons. sometimes it just doesn't work out how you planned, but still comes out tastey beer.
 
We brew by the batch, not by the ounce. At least you're not losing a gallon to the trub like I am on my latest. Seven years of homebrewing & this is the biggest pile of sludge I've ever had.
 
david_42 said:
At least you're not losing a gallon to the trub like I am on my latest. Seven years of homebrewing & this is the biggest pile of sludge I've ever had.
Which is exactly why I've come to love my hop strainer. :)

9557-hopbag.jpg
 
BlindLemonLars said:
Which is exactly why I've come to love my hop strainer. :)

9557-hopbag.jpg



Hmm, care to elaborate on the hop strainer? Do you use this during the boil? when racking to the primary? dry hopping? racking to secondary? all? none?


Sorry for any dumb questions, this is the noob forum right?

My first batch (brewers best cali IPA) is about 10 days old right now, and after racking to secondary at 1.02ish and dry hopping (a little improv on the first batch cant hurt right?), I think I am right around 4.5 gallons and there are 2 distinct trub layers on the bottom of the carboy totaling 1.25 - 1.5 inches. Im a little worried about the final product being a little ahem... strong. May add a little extra water to the priming sugar mix if the FG is still high.
 
s3n8 said:
Do you use this during the boil? when racking to the primary? dry hopping? racking to secondary? all? none?
During the boil, and I just drop the hops into the center. When my chiller goes in the pot, the bag goes inside the coils. Once the boil is over, I just lift the assembly up, let it drain a minute or two, and finally dump all the hop sludge into my compost heap.

At this point, the break material is the only solid matter left in the kettle. Through various techniques (whirlpooling, careful racking, straining, etc.) most of this can be kept out of the fermenter too.

Just to be clear, this device is FAR from being my idea...there is a thread somewhere detailing various construction techniques. Some people just hang the bag over the edge, but this type of rig makes hop additions easier.
 
I also was about a half gallon short when adding my wort and water to the primary. After adding the 3 gallons of water which the recipe calls for, we were still short on getting the final volume to 5 gallons. So I added an additional 1/2 gallon to the mix to bring it up to 5 gallons. It seemed to do alright, but now airlock activity has ceased after 4 days. Not sure if this is ok. I've had longer airlock activity in the past.
 
You're 40oz short. Private Stock comes in 40oz bottles. Coincidence? I think not. Just go buy a 40 of PS (or, barring that, Country Club or OE Ice) and add it to the secondary.

eat-drink-smiley-7482.gif
 

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