Help to salvage eff'ed up brew?

[curtw]

Yesterday I brewed what was to be a 3-gallon extract batch of Columbus IPA, for which I'd cut down all the ingredients from a 5-gallon batch of the same beer I made about 6 months ago. In my naivete, I just thought that would be it -- 60% of the grain, LME, and hops, and I'd be good to go.

I've got an 8-gallon kettle and a big-ass 60,000BTU outdoor burner. I started with 3.75gal of water (for a 5gal batch, I usually start w/ 6gal water, and it works out fine). But with the increased room in my kettle, I had a far faster boil, and so evaporated a *lot* more water from the wort. When I finally transferred it to my 5gal fermenting bucket, I had only 2 gallons of sludgy wort before I pitched my yeast.

I was too tired last night to boil-and-cool a gallon of water to top it off, and I didn't want to add plan old (unsanitized) tap water. The O.G. was 1.110, due to small amount of water all those solids were suspended in.

Does it make sense to add a gallon of distilled water today, 24 hours after pitching the yeast? Or should I just chalk it up to experience and dump it down the drain? Or is it possible that it'll be drinkable after all?

Thanks!

 

[masterfool101]

You can most likely add water now without affecting your brew.

In the future, don't worry about adding tap water. Many people do this, and it rarely, if ever, affects the brew. Most tap water is rather sanitary coming out of the faucet.

 

[the_trout]

add the water now, it will be fine. Id use boiled/cooled water but if your tap water is good enough to drink your probably fine with that. You could always go get a gallon of spring water too.