Adjusting OG with water

[el_caro]

Is it an acceptable practice to add water to the post boil volume to achieve a lower OG if the SG is too high due to higher than planned efficiency?

Would beer where water has been added be noticeably different from one made at a lower efficiency that hit the expected OG?

I would have expected that a higher volume in the fermenter mean a reduced hop effect and require more yeast cells?

 

[Ace_Club]

You can add boiled, and then cooled, water post boil to get the SG that you want. There are calculators on the web to figure that out for you as well.

Additionally, if you are taking pre-boil readings, you can also adjust your volume at that point.

The beer shouldn't be noticeably different as the recipe is formulated for a specific SG and you would want to hit that number.

Here's an example calculation (in liters), it assumes you ended up with 32 L of wort at 1.035 and were expecting an SG of 1.033:

32 L (actual) x 35 points (actual) / 33 points (target) = 33.9 L (target).
33.9 L (target) - 32 L (actual) = 1.9 L (to add)

 

[el_caro]

Would not a significant increase in volume of post boil wort mean the hop effect would be diluted and therefore be noticeable in the end product?
Just trying to get my head around it.

 

[Ace_Club]

Would not a significant increase in volume of post boil wort mean the hop effect would be diluted and therefore be noticeable in the end product?
Just trying to get my head around it.

How significant are we talking about?

To some extent that is true, which if why pre-boil adjustments should be made when possible. This will ensure that hop utilization numbers stay accurate.

If you are really far off, then I hope you took good notes so that you can adjust your numbers for next time to be more accurateand to account for the systems efficiency.

 

[asterix404]

So if you are going from like, 5.5G to 6 there will be very little noticeable difference. I just add tap water to get it up from post boil volume since I still haven't figure out yet what the boil off rate is in my system.

 

[el_caro]

How significant are we talking about?

To some extent that is true, which if why pre-boil adjustments should be made when possible. This will ensure that hop utilization numbers stay accurate.

If you are really far off, then I hope you took good notes so that you can adjust your numbers for next time to be more accurateand to account for the systems efficiency.

I did not take pre-boil reading unfortunately. Next time I will take your advice on doing a pre-boil adjustment and keep good notes.

Thanks for the advice.