Less Volume ... Less Alcohol

So I'm in the middle of bottling my AHS Oatmeal Stout extract. Racked from my primary to bottling bucket and discovered that I only had about 4.25 gallons. Only thing I can think of is I didn't add enough top off water, though I'm certain I did.

The other thing is it's only coming out to be 3.8%. Seems like with less water, the abv would be higher. ???

WTF did i do?!?!

Looks like I got a session stout on my hands.

you lost some in racking no doubt... but the chances are, you took your O.G. without stirring well enough.

give it some time, and quaff a few...you'll know!

Well, I figured out the biggest problem. I was using a fermenter with no gallon marks. I had used a gallon jug to top it off and I didn't account for the evaporation. I noticed this as I was cleaning the bucket and saw no markings. So I grabbed a gallon jug, filled up the bucket and marked it off as I went.

I remember after I brewed this I read that I should mix the top off water with the wort before taking a reading. I have done this since I brewed this batch.

Man, I hope this turns out good. At least it didn't take as long to bottle.

just go with the volume you have. No need to top off now, especially after fermentation. If you want to end up with 5 gallons, you should brew 5.5 gallons.

Edcculus said:

just go with the volume you have. No need to top off now, especially after fermentation. If you want to end up with 5 gallons, you should brew 5.5 gallons.

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Yeah, if you're topping up to 5 - then you'll most likely end up with less than 4.5 or so at the end. Design your recipes larger - maybe even 6 gallons.