Accidentally knowingly watered down beer

CornyKegs 728
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beercentrist

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Can it be saved? I moved it to secondary then thought "might as well top it off," and added quite a bit more water -- maybe half a gallon to a gallon. It's fermented for a couple of weeks since, just tried it today and it was rather watery. Anything I can do to save the thing, or is it lost?

Original thread here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/brewing-tomorrow-help-recipe-290608/

Tastes rather green/fresh, vinous, strong bitter vegetal notes (hops?) towards the back of the mouth, some malt and chocolate on the finish.

I've also heard about secondary beers being made from the run-off, but always going from big beers to smaller, sub 4-5% ones. Can it be done the other way around?
 
The hard way would be to brew 2 more batches and when you open one watered beer, open 2 good ones and mix them together. 2 drinks and you are set for the entire night.
 
No not much you can do. It will be ok. A little weaker than what you might have wanted but it should be drinkable. The added bonus you learned a lesson, and that is what makes good brewers.
 
If (and only if) you would otherwise dump this beer, you could try the technique used in eisbocks.

If you have a plastic bucket or keg and a freezer, you can start freezing the beer to the point where a very light slush starts to form. Rack the liquid portion to another vessel, while trying to leave about a gallon's worth (or whatever extra you added) of ice behind.

If you listen to the Jamil Show episode about eisbock, they have an in-depth description of the kinds of flavour changes you could expect. I'm thinking they may work well with a chocolate stout, since you'd get less bitterness and more dried-fruit flavours.

Note: I have never done this before, and think it's totally crazy.
 
Not sure if that would work. Theoretically you could to a small batch of wort hopped and grained similar to the brew that is watered down. And repitch it with another shot of yeast. I would up the gravity and mouthfeel. It would be difficult though because you would need to aerate the new wort and then introduce it to the fermented beer which would oxidize the beer already in place...........It would be a crap shoot.
 
belmontbrew said:
If (and only if) you would otherwise dump this beer, you could try the technique used in eisbocks.

If you have a plastic bucket or keg and a freezer, you can start freezing the beer to the point where a very light slush starts to form. Rack the liquid portion to another vessel, while trying to leave about a gallon's worth (or whatever extra you added) of ice behind.

If you listen to the Jamil Show episode about eisbock, they have an in-depth description of the kinds of flavour changes you could expect. I'm thinking they may work well with a chocolate stout, since you'd get less bitterness and more dried-fruit flavours.

Note: I have never done this before, and think it's totally crazy.
Click to expand...

That does sound crazy cool! But also like a lot of work...I only put a bit of corn sugar in there, so maybe once it's bottled and stored away for a while it will improve...but probably not. And the flavor is definitely sharp and hoppy. Maybe a bit of that rubber stopper that fell in there. Oh god, now I'm certain that's what I'm tasting -- but that's crazy, right?
 

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