Not enough water!! Help!

[Ethan19993]

I didn't add enough top off water to my carboy, I just realized. It's about 1 1/2 inches shy of the 5 gallon mark. I had two boil overs and lost some of the wort because of that. What should I do? Leave it be? Add more water now? It's been fermenting for about a day now already. Will this make the abv higher? The gravity readings?

 

[flars]

Leave it as it is. Your volume is down because of wort loss. The wort concentration probably has the correct balance for the recipe. If you add water to bring it up to the recipe volume it may just water down the brews flavor.

1.5 inches is probably 1.5 quarts if your carboy has the same diameter as mine.

 

[Ethan19993]

Leave it as it is. Your volume is down because of wort loss. The wort concentration probably has the correct balance for the recipe. If you add water to bring it up to the recipe volume it may just water down the brews flavor.

1.5 inches is probably 1.5 quarts if your carboy has the same diameter as mine.

It was a five gallon batch. I managed to handle the boil overs pretty quickly so not too much was lost of the wort. Thanks for the response! I'm probably just gonna leave as is.

 

[brewkinger]

+1 for just letting it go.

What was the OG?

 

[whoaru99]

Using dimensions from a brewing supply outfit, 1" in a 5g (glass) carboy is about 0.35 gallons, 1" in a 6.5g (glass) carboy is about 0.5 gallons.

So, considering you probably didn't lose much in the boilovers you're a fair bit short, IMO. Roughly 0.5 to 0.75 gallons depending on the size of the carboy.

If it were me I'd -

1. Take a gravity reading of what you have, then use a calculator like this to figure how much water to add to hit the target OG.

2. Top it off close, but a little short depending on your estimate of the boilover loss.

 

[Ethan19993]

Using dimensions from a brewing supply outfit, 1" in a 5g (glass) carboy is about 0.35 gallons, 1" in a 6.5g (glass) carboy is about 0.5 gallons.

So, considering you probably didn't lose much in the boilovers you're a fair bit short, IMO. Roughly 0.5 to 0.75 gallons depending on the size of the carboy.

If it were me I'd -

1. Take a gravity reading of what you have, then use a calculator like this to figure how much water to add to hit the target OG.

2. Top it off close, but a little short depending on your estimate of the boilover loss.

This is the Carboy. So I guess it's lower than I thought It Was.

 

[whoaru99]

You're still mostly in the pretty straigh sides of the carboy so you could do a rough volume calculation to get an idea of what you have. Be sure to account a little for the glass thickness.

OTOH, the measuring OG would be the best way to see where you're at.

 

[twistr25]

Really worst case, you end up with a higher ABV Other than that, if that is your current beer in the pic, I wouldn't do a thing, it looks like it is fermenting quite nicely!

 

[flars]

I didn't add enough top off water to my carboy, I just realized. It's about 1 1/2 inches shy of the 5 gallon mark. I had two boil overs and lost some of the wort because of that. What should I do? Leave it be? Add more water now? It's been fermenting for about a day now already. Will this make the abv higher? The gravity readings?

I'm just comparing the picture of your carboy to where I have my glass carboys marked for 5 gallons. Is your carboy designated by the manufacturer as a 5 gallon or 6 gallon?

 

[Ethan19993]

I'm just comparing the picture of your carboy to where I have my glass carboys marked for 5 gallons. Is your carboy designated by the manufacturer as a 5 gallon or 6 gallon?

It's a 6 gallon