Now this will take the cake for stupid mistakes.

[Rdracera1]

I THINK, I'll know for sure in a few minutes, that I shorted myself a gallon of water when I put my wort into primary a week ago. I might be wrong but, it looks a little low and this would explain why my OG was higher than I expected......

So, my question is should I top off the secondary with boiled & cooled water or just leave it concentrated?



False alarm, there was 5 gallons..... It just looked low and the LHBS planted the idea in my head that I forgot to top off the primary to 5 gallons when I completed the brew. I should have know I'm way to anal retentive to have missed something like that....

Cheers!

 

[Walker]

well.... if you ever actually DO something like that for real....

topping it off with more water is perfectly acceptable. I would suggest tasting what you have and decide whether you want to keep it as is and only have 4 gallons of it, or dilute it with water and have 5 gallons.

-walker

 

[Levers101]

Heh, I did the exact opposite this weekend while brewing. I topped my fermentor off to 5 gallons with water then went and pitched the starter which was just under 2 L (about 2 quarts I'd suppose), so now I have 5.5 gallons in my fermentor. I'm not too concerned though, as the starter wasn't straight water (obviously) and was probably about 75-80% of the gravity of the wort when it started anyways. Plus I'm sure I had higher hop utilization than the recipe banked on since it called for a 1.5-2 gallon boil and I did a 3.5 gallon boil to try to get a lighter colored finished product.

 

[Cheesefood]

Heh, I did the exact opposite this weekend while brewing. I topped my fermentor off to 5 gallons with water then went and pitched the starter which was just under 2 L (about 2 quarts I'd suppose), so now I have 5.5 gallons in my fermentor. I'm not too concerned though, as the starter wasn't straight water (obviously) and was probably about 75-80% of the gravity of the wort when it started anyways. Plus I'm sure I had higher hop utilization than the recipe banked on since it called for a 1.5-2 gallon boil and I did a 3.5 gallon boil to try to get a lighter colored finished product.

Usually 5.25-5.5 gallons will yield you 5 gallons of brew. You can expect to loose up to a half-gallon in the transfering process, either from trub saturation or just plain old not being able to get it all with the racking cane.

 

[Willie3]

I always top off at 5.5 expecting that I will have missed some from trub residue and rack off. I am always assured a 5 gallon batch.

I never thought about yeilding less, but might try to get a more concentrated taste. (interesting).

- WW