can i top up with boiled water?

i missed my final volume do to a mistake with my dipstick that measures how many gallons i have in my keggle, so im like a .5 gallons to 1 gallon short on all 4 of these beers, (i was brewing 2x10 gallon batches of beer) i am high on my OG.... i thought i would boil some water and add it to it, but someone in the chat said that everytime they add water that it makes the beer taste watery, I am doing AG.... I dont under stand how that could be if i have the gravity points to spare after i do the water calc (so i dont make my beer toooo weak) should i top up with boiled water? if so how late can i top up? after fermentation? the next day? is it a bad idea and should i just leave it? hmmmmmmm thoughts? debate? thanks guys oooh yah..... should i aerate the water? or just boil it then cool it down to my fermentation temp?


Cheers!

I can only answer a few of your questions.

If your beer came out too strong topping off with water should not make the finished beer watery. So long as the water added does not drive the OG too low.

I would only add the water prior to fermenting. I would imagine doing it after fermentation would result in watery beer.

If you are using tap water it will need to be boiled and then aerated and vigorously mixed with the wort.

All that said I usually go with the stronger beer.

As long as you have the sugars, diluting the wort will not make it taste watery (barring psychological effects). You should be able to dilute it at any stage up to and including serving (with carbonated water), but I'd personally feel most comfortable before fermentation or during early fermentation. I've boiled off more than expected then topped up in the fermenter without issue, so I know it works.

If your fermentation is going strong or hasn't started, oxygenating the water won't hurt and could help; if it's tailed off or finished, you want to avoid exposing the beer to oxygen if at all possible.

Do not pour boiling water into the fermenter! Cool it first. You could crack the glass or kill most of the yeast.

As for diluting, I say go for it.

just found this article...... good info Brew Your Own: The How-To Homebrew Beer Magazine - Techniques - Blending for Volume: Techniques

flowerysong said:

As long as you have the sugars, diluting the wort will not make it taste watery (barring psychological effects). You should be able to dilute it at any stage up to and including serving (with carbonated water), but I'd personally feel most comfortable before fermentation or during early fermentation. I've boiled off more than expected then topped up in the fermenter without issue, so I know it works.

If your fermentation is going strong or hasn't started, oxygenating the water won't hurt and could help; if it's tailed off or finished, you want to avoid exposing the beer to oxygen if at all possible.

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huh?

If you boiled too much and your OG is high... add water. Its not gonna make it taste watery. Actually... I don't know how you can make beer taste any more watery. Its like 90% water already!

sirsloop said:

huh?

If you boiled too much and your OG is high... add water. Its not gonna make it taste watery. Actually... I don't know how you can make beer taste any more watery. Its like 90% water already!

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You know what he means.

sirsloop said:

huh?

If you boiled too much and your OG is high... add water. Its not gonna make it taste watery.

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Huh? That's what I said...

There is nothing inherently wrong with adding water at bottling time - its best to boil to ensure no nasties but you will find that a number of us have added unboiled clean water with no ill effects. The only difference that may occur is the flavor profile that the yeast produce might (that's a very small might) vary because of how stressed they might be in a higher/lower sugar environment during fermentation. Of course this would not apply when we are talking about a change of 5% or less of the total available sugars.

A number or commercial breweries do their light lagers this way - they ferment them up at high OG then dilute at bottling in order to increase production efficiency.

BTW pouring 1 liter of boiling water (100 C) into 19 liters of partially fermented beer (say 20 C) will result in a very small temperature rise (final 24 C) that will not kill any yeast.