Is it too late?....

So i made a kit of wheat beer. Followed the recipe and put it in the fermentor. Its now bottling day and I noticed i have a little over 4 gallons. I simply didn't add enough on brew day !
Observations, The beer smells and tastes ok. Its darker than it should be. The FG was spot on. Is it too late to add 1 gallon of water to increase the yield, or should I bottle what I have and chalk it up to experience?

I personally think you should leave it as is and bottle up a stronger brew. Then get started on another ASAP!

I am assuming this was an extract kit? If that's the case it's interesting that you hit the intended FG w/ roughly 20% less post-boil volume than intended. I would double check the numbers just to be safe, but as stated above you are good to go ahead and bottle if it's been 2 or 3 weeks. I would not add any add'l water.

HawksBrewer said:

I am assuming this was an extract kit? If that's the case it's interesting that you hit the intended FG w/ roughly 20% less post-boil volume than intended. I would double check the numbers just to be safe, but as stated above you are good to go ahead and bottle if it's been 2 or 3 weeks. I would not add any add'l water.

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Yes, its a cherry wheat from Midwest. I checked the numbers for two days straight after the first week and if i read it right is was 1.010. I am very new to this (my second kit) so now you have me second guessing my techniques. Since I am cleaning bottles and setting up for bottling I will re check my numbers. Should my numbers be off because of the variant in water volume? and how would you adjust to compensate? Or am i over reacting and should I just bottle the damn beer!

Typically, would expect higher OG and FG than intended, because your volume is lower (think of it like a percentage- 2 bad apples in a box of 10 is 20%, but 2 in a box of 5 is 40%).
But yes, I'd just bottle it, and see how it drinks in a few weeks. Still worth reviewing your process- did you boil longer than the recipe called for, could your starting (pre-boil) volume have been low, was the delta volume lost to trub or material in the BK, did you casually drink a gallon of it while watching it boil...you get the idea

Thanks for the tips. hope it turns out ok.