Top Up Water Into Secondary

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CaPPiN

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I have been reading what I can find about topping up your beer between primary and secondary to get back to 5 gallons. Some people use this as standard practice, some think it to be appalling due to the fact that you are essentially 'watering down' your beer.

I tend to think (and I'm pretty new to this, so correct me if I'm wrong) that not topping off would be the best way to go as there should be enough CO2 activity to push out the little oxygen in the head space.

However, for my current situation I think topping up might make sense. I made a beer starting with maple sap fortified 2:1. The sugar that this added took my OG from the expected ~1.045 up to 1.070@92°. Would it make sense to top this one off due to the fact that I actually have more 'umph' than a typical beer of this type would have?

Additional Information:
Beer: Brown Ale Malt Extract Kit
Fermenting: Done in 5 gallon carboy with Blow-off tube (thus loosing some of the content)

Thanks!
 
I'm in the camp that doesn't top off after fermentation is under way. To me it is just watering down the beer, which I don't want to do. Even if I went way above my OG, if I chose not to add water at the time I took my reading on brew day, I don't see why I would now want to a few weeks in.
 
You would drop down the flavor of the maple which is I'm sure what you are looking for but you'll also drop down the flavor of the rest of the beer. If it's the difference between a bottle or two I would just leave it alone. Think about it this way, your tolerance will increase.:ban:
 
Thanks for the quick reply, I think I'm going to try it without topping up. I actually thought about adding an even more fortified maple sap (maybe 4:1 or so) because I'm afraid starting with 2:1 sap won't give me many of the maple tones that I'm looking for.

But I think for this first batch, I'm just going to see how it turns out as is. In a future batch I may try and add pasteurized maple syrup (or strong sap) during the primary fermentation. If I don't do this batch without adding it in primary I'll have nothing to compare to...

Thanks again for the replies!
 
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