OK to add water to bring wor up to volume / down to target gravity before fermenting?

[Ishouldbeking]

I'm sure this has a simple yes or no answer, but I wanted to ask anyway.

My buddy and I brewed our first batch (we went all out and went all-grain!) earlier this year, and it came out... OK. Not good, not horrible, but acceptably beer-like. One of our main issues was that for whatever reason, we ended up with significantly less wort than we were expecting at the end (8 or 8.5 gallons instead of 10), so our gravity was a bit higher than we were shooting for and the yeast didn't fare as well as we would have hoped. Our porter came in around 3.7% alcohol, which left it sweeter than we wanted and a bit unbalanced (also allowing some of the less desirable off-flavors that we created by briefly overheating our mash to take center stage ).

So if that happened again, could we have just added a gallon and a half of boiled (but room temp) water to bring it up to volume and to help drop the gravity down where we want it?

 

[yancydc]

Well, yeah. But your ABV should've been higher if your original gravity was too high.

Sounds like something else went amiss. What kind of yeast? Did you oxygenate your beer?

 

[smokinj]

What was your mash temp?

 

[Ishouldbeking]

Well, yeah. But your ABV should've been higher if your original gravity was too high.

Sounds like something else went amiss. What kind of yeast? Did you oxygenate your beer?

Oh several things went amiss, all of which seem like they might have contributed to a less-than-stellar fermentation. We used the dry yeast that came with the ingredient kit.

Things that (we know of) that went wrong:

-mashing got a little screwy trying to keep the mash at temp. we have a giant steel kettle with false bottom that we were trying to use. we didn't know to wrap it in towels or insulate, so when the temp dropped quite dramatically within the first 10 minutes, we turned the burner on low. basically it was a case of not having a feel for our kettle, thermometer, or gas burner. the temp kept dropping, then suddenly shot up just over 170. we plan to be MUCH more cautious with this next time.

-I don't think we aerated nearly enough. the day was getting awfully late, my buddy was getting a severe migraine and we were rushing around towards the end of the day. in hindsight we should have aerated MUCH more.

-the room where we kept (at my buddy's parents house about 45 minutes away), ended up being a good amount colder than we had expected, which probably impacted fermentation. next time we're fermenting at my buddy's temperature controlled loft, where we can keep a better eye on it and maintain a better temp.

-then the above issues where we had a too-high gravity and too-low volume. I was under the impression that a far too-high OG (i think ours was 1.073) can prevent the yeast from doing it's thing properly.

So... yeah. Lots of possible things that probably added up to a less than awesome fermentation.

 

[Ishouldbeking]

What was your mash temp?

mash temp was supposed to 153. we hit that initially, but it dropped pretty quickly to about 147... then shot up way high once we applied heat. we had a really hard time keeping it stable.

 

[smokinj]

Sounds like you know the answers to most of your issues. Just remember to account for boil off when figuring your preboil volume. I usually lose around 2 gallons on a 10 gallon batch, so start with 12. One pack of yeast is usually fine for a 1.072 beer, but i cannot speak for the ones that come in kits. Topping off with boiled, chilled water is totally acceptable. Most extract brewers do it on every batch. Happy brewing!

 

[yancydc]

You may have been underpitched on the yeast, but I don't know what your kit came with. Mrmalty says you would need a couple 11.5 g packets for 8.5 gallons.

Could also be aeration, can't say exactly.

Does sound like you figured out what went wrong for next time!

 

[neosapien]

Yup, sounds like you know what happened. For future reference, if your temp drops like that I'd say just go ahead and leave it and let it tone down on it's own. Lower mash temp means more easily fermentable sugars. At the worst, you're going to end up with a drier, more fermentable beer than you expected. once you cross that 153 degree threshold you start getting long chain, non-fermentable sugars happening.