Should I hit my Trippel with some more yeast?

[agurkas]

I am brewing Bornem Trippel clone 2nd time around. It was my 3rd beer I brewed and now my 12th (or something like that). I got the flavor just right this time. It is almost perfect... it just needs more alcohol in it and I need to raise the volume a bit.

The OG on it was 1.112 and 20 days later I am at 1.012.
I used WLP545 (absolutely love how it tastes with this yeast instead for WLP500).

So the question is. I messed up just a tad, so the total quantity ended up only 4 gallons instead of 5. I am thinking about putting in half a gallon of water with 0.5LB of Belgian Candi. Am I going to mess it up by doing that? Also, should I hit it with another dose of WLP545 or should I hit it with some champaign yeast?

 

[libeerty]

If you like it the way it is now, I'd enjoy the 4 gallons rather than risk watering it down.

 

[Calder]

You say it needs more alcohol, and yet you want to water it down.

Going from 1.112 to 1.012, it is now at 13%+ abv. I don't think you need more alcohol.

If you dilute it to 5 gallons, it still be 10.5% abv.

My personal opinion is; if you think it is a good beer you shouldn't do anything with it, and should bottle it as is. Your yeast should be fine, but at that alcohol level it will take a while to carb (maybe a few months).

If you must dilute it, I would recommend doing it at bottling rather than re-starting fermentation. Use the normal priming sugar for 5 gallons, and boil it in a gallon of water, cool and mix gently in the bottling bucket. Water does have oxygen entrained in it, and with that much water you could be adding too much oxygen. To ensure you don't have a problem with oxidation, boil the water for at least 10 minutes; boiling drives off the oxygen.

 

[agurkas]

So looks like I should not mess with it. I would like to ferment out just a bit more sweetness out of it though.
I am keging it, so not worried about carbonation.

 

[Calder]

I would like to ferment out just a bit more sweetness out of it though.

Have you tried ramping the temperature up? I find I can get a couple more points out of a Belgian by slowly increasing the temperature to the mid 80s. I use a swamp cooler with a fish tank heater to get the temperature up.

 

[CTownBrewer]

I'd take 4 gallons of awesome beer over 5 gallons of possibly worse, watered down, or infected beer.

 

[agurkas]

Thanks for all the advice. I will leave it alone and will just have to make some more