First AG - Urgent primary needs to know! Top up or not?

So, my first AG just went into the primary. I've done 36 successful 5 Gal extract brews.

The wort is 1.062 OG, but even though I started with 6 Gal wort, I'm left with 4 Gal in the primary. Target was 1.060 OG, 1.020 FG (although all my extracts were ending at 1.010 FG)

Extract brews I always topped up to 5Gal, but I never measured OG before topping.

Top up the primary with water, or leave it?




The wife called it FART. First Attempt Ruby Tears.

Gypsy Tears Ruby Ale AG Attempt #1
11.0 lbs 2 row pale
1.0 lbs Crystal 80L
8.0 oz CaraPils
4.0 oz Wheat
0.8 oz Roasted Barley
8.0 oz Flaked Barley

0.5 oz Columbus @ 60 min
1.00 oz Cascade whole @ 30 min
0.75 oz Amarillo whole @ 15 min
0.75 oz Cascade whole @ 15 min
1 tsp Irish Moss @ 10 min
1.0 oz Amarillo whole @ 5 min
1.0 oz Cascade whole @ 5 min
1.5 oz Amarillo whole @ 0 min
0.25 oz Cascade whole @ 0 min

1.0 oz Amarillo pellet dry hops

Pretty sure I didn't account for the hops loss with the 6Gal boil.

I had to do that a while ago and it turned out fine, I'm not a super experienced AG brewer but if you top up with 1 gal of water I get a blended FG of 1.016 if you do 1.02*0.8 + 1*0.2 = 1.016...not sure if that is correct at all but thats what I did and it was all good

I'd rather have four gallons of what I was shooting for than have five gallons of something else. My philosophy is whatever comes out of the kettle is what I go with. Why not go for a next batch and calculate for your kettle loss?

If you take a 1.062 of four gallons and water it to five gallons you get 1.0496--a very different beer. Think about it. 1/5 of it would be extra water.

(62*4)/5=49.6

+1 on go with what you have.

I use a self-calibrated rod to measure kettle volumes. You need to find your system's boil-off rate, and kettle loss to trub, then factor those into each brew.

If you hit your OG within two points, give thanks to the beer gods and don't mess with it. Next time just scale it up. (I have to boil 7 gallons to get my standard 5.25 in the fermenter.)

Go with what you have. I wish I saved the post from a member who wrote that when your final wort measurement is less than what you anticipated, just roll with it. I had issues with my first AG brew and I rolled with the final amount of 4 gallons. Gravity was already lower than expected so why bother messing with it. I think I'll have 4 gallons of decent beer instead of 5 gallons of watered down beer.

Sold. I even used 2L more sparge than what brewpal was telling me. Thanks.

cluckk said:

Why not go for a next batch and calculate for your kettle loss?

Click to expand...

oh, there will be another.