Shorted the 5 gallon batch by 1 gallon of water

I accidentally shorted my 5 gallon batch by 1 gallon of water, so I ended up with 4 gallons using the below recipe. The WLP002 put on a hell of a show, raging for 36 hours and has been slowly bubbling for 5 days, all ferm stages at 70 up to 72 degrees. OG was at 1.072. Didn't register that was a bit high (called for 1.065).

Predicted repercussions? I like a stronger beer, but I'm concerned that this one might be over the top. Should I cut it with some (boiled & cooled) water, or just let it be?

I haven't pulled any samples to see if the FG has stabilized, as it's still bubbling (very, very infrequently, but bubbles are popping up).

Recipe:

Munton's Amber LME unhopped - 3.3 lbs, 0 oz
Briess Sparkling Amber Dry Extract - 3 lbs, 0 oz
Crisp Maris Otter - 1 lbs, 0 oz
Briess 2 Row Caramel 60 - 8 oz
Crisp Brown - 4 oz
Special B - 4 oz
Crisp Chocolate Malt - 2 oz
Kent Goldings, UK Pellets 1 oz @ 60 mins
Fuggles Pellets, UK .5 oz @ 55 mins
Fuggles Pellets, UK .5 oz @ 45 mins
Irish Moss 1 oz
White Labs English Ale WLP002 (1 ea)


Bring water to 150, steep for 30, dunk bag every 5 minutes, remove
Bring to 180, add LME & DME
Bring to boil
1 oz Kent Gold at boil
45 minutes in, add 1/2 oz Fuggle
45 minutes in, add 1 oz Irish Moss
55 minutes in, add 1/2 oz Fuggle
Cool to 70
Pitch Yeast
Ferm at 72

Thanks in advance!
[EDIT] I just saw https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/first-brew-shorted-myself-gallon-222555/, swear I didn't find it in the search...

That is a rather high OG. I went through a phase where I was brewing beers between 1.067 -1.072 just becasue I wanted strong beer that I could sip on. Don't worry about the craziness in the fermentor. High gravity beers tend to go a bit stupid.....in fact I'm surprised you are not reporting blow off through the air lock. I would NOT dilute the batch at this point......the time to do this would have been after cooling the boiled wort (ie before fermentation). The beer will taste just fine.....it will just have a little higher alcohol content than was intended.....and there will be less of it.

Just make notes of what happened and correct the problem on the next batch ...........no worries.

BBL_Brewer said:

I would NOT dilute the batch at this point......the time to do this would have been after cooling the boiled wort (ie before fermentation).

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I completely agree.
After brewing my last batch i noticed i was short a little over half a gallon of wort. My hydro reading was a bit too fat also. I topped it off to the 5 gallon mark on my fermentor and mixed well. Took another hydro reading and was spot on were i wanted to be. These little hiccups should be taken care of before pitching.

It should be fine. If you want to dilute it wont hurt anything. You could do it now. If you want to boil and cool a lot of water with your priming sugar in it that works too.

I agree, you are probably better off leaving it be. You didn't miss target OG by so much that it will be horribly unbalanced.

Interested to hear the FG of this. You could dry hop it in a secondary and have a nice India Brown Ale- or even imperial brown ale.... I'll bet this turns out pretty nice.

Thanks for the input, everybody!

@BBLBrewer: Yeah, wasn't too worried on the ferm rage, I loved the show. I have it in a 6.5 gallon glass, and forgot to mention I did 10 drops of Fermcap before boil, so there was about 1/2" of Krausen, and a very noisy blowoff jug (I will NEVER get tired of that sound).

@NCSpar10: I'll report back with the FG once it stabilizes (still getting burps from the 3 piece). Will call back with taste/outcome as well, to give cradle-to-grave story.

I do like the idea of dry hop in 2ndary, wonder if I should split it into 2X2gallons, and dry hop one of them, just to see the delta on the outcome of dry hopping (why not get that third carboy, right?). What strain, time and quantity do you recommend for this recipe, if I do dry hop?

I'll leave it at full strength, as I like sippers anyway.

Sincerely thank you all for your advice!

It might take longer to ferment out. Give it time and give it some age after bottle/kegging, but sounds like something I would like to drink.

Rockape66 said:

It might take longer to ferment out. Give it time and give it some age after bottle/kegging, but sounds like something I would like to drink.

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Yeah, I don't try and rush things, and I knew this one would be a long haul once I realized what I'd done. Since it's still working (slowly), I'm not too worried about a stall at this point. Maybe after 3 weeks in the primary and a high SG, I'll get nervous, but for now, I'm gonna let 'er ride...

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm actually excited to see how it turns out!

Yeah, I think time will be your friend with this one. Good idea on splitting it too- if you wanted to keep it an English style, you could dry hop with some Goldings just enough to up the aroma slightly- maybe 1/2 oz. for your 2 G (I'm just guessing- if I were doing it for myself, I'd be guessing too. You could probably search around on here for some dry hopping methodology). Or you could go straight American and drop some Cascades in there. Your hop schedule makes me think that your flavor will be a more malty tasting (although, being 1G short may tip the scales in favor of the hops...) so I wouldn't get too crazy, but if you're one that likes hop flavor and aroma- if some is good, more is better, right?

NcSpar10 said:

Interested to hear the FG of this. You could dry hop it in a secondary and have a nice India Brown Ale- or even imperial brown ale.... I'll bet this turns out pretty nice.

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Racked to secondary after 26 days in primary. FG flattened out at 1.021, a little lower than target of 1.027, which I'm fine with.

Normally, when I taste a sample during racking, I'm a little set back by the taste, but keeping in mind that as it aged a bit more and bottle conditioned, I'd be where I want. This one, however, tastes good right now. I can't wait to get this one bottled.

And I'm not gonna dry hop this batch, but going by what I've tasted so far, I will be making this "mistake" again, and will play around with dry hopping it.

That's a somewhat high alcohol brew. Probably 7% or maybe a little higher. Personally I don't think it's too bad, but you might be getting closer to a sipping beer.
If it were my choice, I would dilute with a half gallon of water and no more.

IceFisherChris said:

That's a somewhat high alcohol brew. Probably 7% or maybe a little higher. Personally I don't think it's too bad, but you might be getting closer to a sipping beer.
If it were my choice, I would dilute with a half gallon of water and no more.

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Yeah, this one will be a sipper. Which is good, I like a beer I have to chew.