Big Mistake?

I am brewing a 6-malt amber using extract + specialty grains. My roomy measured the OG, told me it was fine, so once I was back in the kitchen to help i pitched the liquid yeast, put the lid on and put it away. Two hours later my roommate decided to tell me the OG was .008 higher than it should have been, so we decided to reopen the fermenter, boil some water, let it cool to 75-80, and mix it in well to avoid a final product that is too sweet/too full bodied. will this have any negative effect? I woke up this morning to my airlock already bubbling away...

If your airlock is bubbling, it's not contaminated, the yeast has won the battles against any contaminating agents.

.008 too high isn't too bad. I wouldn't have even bothered adding extra water, but it sounds like you did it correctly. The extra .008 would have added a little extra alcohol, no big deal.

I wouldn't have done that, .008 is such an insignificant amount. Plus more than likely the og was dead on.

It's a pretty common issue for ANYONE using extract and then topping off with water (and that includes partial mashes) to have an error in reading the OG...In fact, it is actually nearly impossible to mix the wort and the top off water in a way to get an accurate OG reading...

Brewers get a low reading if they get more of the top off water than the wort, conversely they get a number over if they grabbed more of the extract than the top off water in their sample.

Like i said it is pretty common.

When I am doing an extract with grain recipe I make sure to stir for a minimum of 5 minutes (whipping up a froth to aerate as well) before I draw a grav sample and pitch my yeast....It really is an effort to integrate the wort with the top off water...This is a fairly common new brewer issue we get on here...unless you under or over topped off or the final volume for the kit was 5 gallons and you topped off to 5.5, then the issue, sorry to say, is "operator error"

it doesn't matter what your reading was.....the "real reading" in an extract batch is what it said it would be in the recipe or beersmith....Whether or not you mixed it up enough before you took the reading it mixed itself up fine during fermentation.

So unless you had a final volume a gallon or so higher than 5 gallons....you recipe will be fine and at the OG it was supposed to be,

I bet your OG is EXACTLY what it is supposed to be.

And during fermentation the wort and water will mix up just fine on it's own.

Next time, just relx and don't try to "fix" anything that might not be broken.

I have the same question.


Is it ok to adjust the OG by adding boiled water to already boiled wort, just before pitching the yeast?


If I hit significantly more than I want, can I add some boiling water to lower the OG?

Of course, I do all grain, so my question is in this manner.....

400d said:

I have the same question.


Is it ok to adjust the OG by adding boiled water to already boiled wort, just before pitching the yeast?


If I hit significantly more than I want, can I add some boiling water to lower the OG?

Of course, I do all grain, so my question is in this manner.....

Click to expand...

Absolutely, just make sure it is cool. It will throw off your IBU's minorly if your volume differs from you calculated volume. I don't worry too much about exact OG numbers as long as it's not 3.5% and not 10%, if I'm a little high or a little low, that error won't drastically impact the beer or its flavor.

Since you're doing AG, it's probably best to pay very close attention to your efficiency at first so that your efficiency becomes clockwork and is incorporated into every batch without much variation. This way, you can count on "X%" efficiency and shouldn't ever be too much off of this.

400d said:

I have the same question.


Is it ok to adjust the OG by adding boiled water to already boiled wort, just before pitching the yeast?


If I hit significantly more than I want, can I add some boiling water to lower the OG?

Of course, I do all grain, so my question is in this manner.....

Click to expand...

If you have brewing software, like beersmith they have somethig called the "dillution calculator" you imput the current gravity, and the volume along with the volume you want to achieve and it helps you figure out how much water you need to top off with in order to hit your intended gravity. The cool thing is that, as I ofent over boil especially if I am having wind issues with my turkey fryer or am doing a longer than normal boil to blow off dms in pilsner, the amount I am under my final volume, and the amount I need to add, usually a round a half gallon using the calculator I end up hitting exactly the correct og of my recipe.

Now that it's winter and I've gone back to stove top AG usually 2.5 gallon batches) but lately I have been doing 5 gallon allgrains recipes where I'll use the dillution tool in beersmith, overcompensate 18% for hop utilization and do a high OG 3-4 gallon wort which I will dillute with water down to the 5 gallon OG I am aiming for. I did my Belgian wit that way and it turned out to be one of the best beers I ever brewed.

It also allows you to calculate your gravity if you dillute with wort as well.