Adding Water to Primary?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

kmk1012

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 10, 2010
Messages
230
Reaction score
2
Location
Oregon
My super high OG Hefe has boiled over, now it's down to about 4.5 gallons. Can I add boiled/cooled water to bring it back up to 5 gallons? The original OG is much higher than I anticipeted so lowering the gravity will not make me too sad.
 
As long as you take the proper precautions and don't care about lowering the OG, I don't see why not. How high of an OG do you have right now?
 
You don't want to put oxygenated water in after fermentation is started. I guess you could boil it good to de-oxygenate it. Does anyone have any opinions about just adding the water at bottling time?
 
The OG was at 1.070, way too high for what I was aiming for-a nice easy drinking Hefe.
 
If you want to add water to get to the correct OG, I think that's fine. That's what I would probably do. If you add 1/2 gallon of water, you'd drop the OG by about 5 gravity points. Did you start with 5 gallons at 1.070? (That only matters to do the math to find out the "new" OG).
 
Back
Top