Didn't Add Water To Fermenter

[NewBrew122]

Hey everyone,

I just brewed my first beer about a week ago and I made a pretty dumb mistake in retrospect. After struggling a bit with the wort chiller (couldn't connect to any of my faucets properly) I figured out a way to get it flowing and in my excitement to finally finish brew day, I only put 4 gallons of wort into my fermenter and didn't top off with another gallon. Fast forward to this week, I just looked at my bucket and realized it was only up to the 4 gallon mark. The beer did ferment the 4 gallons but now I'm concerned about bottling day. If I follow the instructions and add the priming sugar solution will there be too much sugar and will the yeast over carb the beer? Should I just add an extra gallon of cooled boiled water to the bottling bucket with the dissolved sugar to get it up to 5 gallons and if I do that will it lower the ABV closer to the target ABV? Thanks for the help!

 

[RM-MN]

Use less sugar. You've just made a small batch of big beer. I think it would not be good to add any water now. This beer may take a little longer to carbonate so give it an extra week before you open a bottle.

 

[flars]

What is your final gravity for this beer?

 

[NewBrew122]

It's supposed to be between 1.012 and 1.015. In my haste I failed to check the OG (if I did I probably would have realized I didn't have enough water) but I haven't checked the FG yet because I was going to wait another week to bottle anyway so I figured id check it Wednesday and again Saturday before bottling.


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[narl79]

Take the amount of suger you were going to use for the 5gl batch and divide it by 5 take that and multiply by 4 and you should be good.

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[garcia]

I was at 4.5 gallons once, and still added all the priming sugar (4.5 ounces). Not bad at all. I didn't notice it was over carbonated.

 

[max384]

Why would it be bad to add the water now?