Not enough water added in Primary

I did a batch a week ago, first in a long time, poured it into the primary fermenter. Instructions said to top off with water to make 5.25gal.

I forgot that I had marked out on the bucket with a sharpie, measurements in litres because the last few can-kits were in litres. (quit doing the can kits because never came out well).

Anyway, screwed up the conversion math in my head, was shy 0.5gal.

I just put the beer into the secondary fermenter, OG was 1.064, currently it's 1.020 and has been exactly 7 days.

Question is, do I leave it? or do I add additional water?

I would just leave it. OG of 1.064 will make a nice beer. I would not water it down.

Cool, thanks... was worried missing that much water would result in a very strong taste, or very high alcohol % that may throw flavour off.

Okay, I am short a whole gallon, but I just did the boil and pitch yesterday, fermentation is rolling nicely now, OG yesterday was 1.062. (First clue that not enough water was added)

I did a full boil of 5.5 gallons to start with, and I didn't keep a close eye on the level as it boiled down.

So should I add more (sterilized) water today?

Rsbhahb

drtodd,

Leave it alone - or as someone here said -

"Step back from the beer"

Yes it might be stronger (alc and taste) but,
1. You might like that
2. Adding more water now increases the chance of a problem that you currently do not have.
3. If you don't like your beer take it to a Home Brew club and make many friends really fast!
4. You just learned an easy lesson.

Thanks for the advise...didn't know what the worst of two evils was. I literally had the water on the stove to boil before adding to the actively fermenting beer.

Looking forward to some very flavorful red ale!

it'll be great as is...

Been in the secondary for over a week now, did another reading... OG was 1.064 and currently 1.018... if my iPhone app is correct, I'm looking at 6.1% ABV or 4.88% ABW.

Seems a bit strong, have no issues with that, just expected around 5.3%.

Directions said that the OG should be around 1.051 and FG 1.011... given the screw-up with water I expected it to be higher as a result. Even though it's been only a few weeks should I be bottling it now? Directions say should be ok after only a week in the secondary... I'm use to the can-kits like Coopers so, use to leaving it in the secondary 2-3 weeks.

From everything I've read here you should take another reading in 2-3 days to make sure the sg hasen't changed before you bottle.
But then I'm only a nOOb

Well, in the past week it's gone from 1.020 to 1.018, seems like activity has stopped a while back... just wanting to make sure given how I'm used to 2-3 weeks vs only 5-7 days.

always a chance of a typo in directions.