Ooops! Rookie move.
Did my 1st brew yesterday; partial boil Canadian draft using only malt extract & nottingham dry yeast. Fermentation seems to be chugging along nicely today.
However, I forgot to do 2 things before pitching the yeast.
1. I forgot to mark where the 5 gallons is on my 6.5 gallon carboy
2. I forgot to take an OG reading
I boiled 3 gallons of water, let it cool, & poured it into the primary then did a 2.5 gallon boil, added & mixed it in really good. I think the process of boiling all this water ended up in something less than 5 gallons total in my primary.
The batch liquid level is about 11 inches from the bottom of my standard 6.5 gallon carboy. It seems there is quite a bit of headroom in the bottle. If I had to guess, I'd say it might be more like 4 gallons.
Here are my rookie questions:
1. Should I add more pre-boiled water at this stage? (18-20 hrs after pitching the yeast) If so, how much?
2. My fermentation is doing fine, should I bother opening it up to take a gravity reading?
3. How will not enough water affect the batch? Will I end up with an extremely high level of alcohol? If so, can anything be done to offset that? The recipe said to expect about 4.9% ABV for a 5 gallon batch.
Any help greatly appreciated.
Did my 1st brew yesterday; partial boil Canadian draft using only malt extract & nottingham dry yeast. Fermentation seems to be chugging along nicely today.
However, I forgot to do 2 things before pitching the yeast.
1. I forgot to mark where the 5 gallons is on my 6.5 gallon carboy
2. I forgot to take an OG reading
I boiled 3 gallons of water, let it cool, & poured it into the primary then did a 2.5 gallon boil, added & mixed it in really good. I think the process of boiling all this water ended up in something less than 5 gallons total in my primary.
The batch liquid level is about 11 inches from the bottom of my standard 6.5 gallon carboy. It seems there is quite a bit of headroom in the bottle. If I had to guess, I'd say it might be more like 4 gallons.
Here are my rookie questions:
1. Should I add more pre-boiled water at this stage? (18-20 hrs after pitching the yeast) If so, how much?
2. My fermentation is doing fine, should I bother opening it up to take a gravity reading?
3. How will not enough water affect the batch? Will I end up with an extremely high level of alcohol? If so, can anything be done to offset that? The recipe said to expect about 4.9% ABV for a 5 gallon batch.
Any help greatly appreciated.