Diluting Homebrew

If I made a beer too strong and it's already been fermenting would there be any problem with boiling my priming sugar in say a gallon of water then adding that to my batch before bottling to get the abv more to what I am looking for?

 

It is possible to dilute a beer in the manner you are proposing. Dilution will bring the ABV down, but it will dilute everything else about the beer, especially the hops contribution.

Did you use a hydrometer or refractometer to determine SG. The SG, and therefore ABV, may be incorrect if you used a refractometer. Refractometers are inaccurate, for a direct reading, in the presence of alcohol.

 

The pros apparently do this often, but then again they plan for it and start their IBUs and OG accordingly.
So, a few more details would be helpful in guessing what you'll end up with. ie. recipe?, process(extract? PM?AG?), OG?

 

To summarize that with the help of some members we were able to determine the beer should be around 7% abv. The details of what I did are in the "did I ruin my beer topic"(http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/did-i-ruin-beer-503916/).

After playing around with the calculators I determined the following.

Keeping the beer as is would give ABV 7% and IBU 30.32
Diluting to 5.5 gallons would give ABV 6.35% and IBU 27.38
Diluting to 6 gallons would give ABV 5.82% and IBU 22.47

For hops I used:
1 oz Centennial at the start of the boil (60 min)
1 oz UK East Kent Golding at 30 min
1 oz US Golding at 15 min

For yeast I used Safale American Ale Yeast US-05

I am not following any specific recipe main concern is the 7% will be too strong/sweet for my taste. My previous batch (this is my third) ended up about 5.5% abv and I liked it. The type of beer I was shooting for was going to be a nut brown ale. Any thoughts?

 

Wait two to three weeks for your first hydrometer sample to taste. You may really like the taste, even though it will be a green, flat beer. Definitely do not try to rush this beer.

 

Yeah, I will do that for sure good advice. Is there any reason to wait 2 - 3 weeks if fermentation is completed? I took a reading today and it read 1.018. I took it from the spigot on my bucket. Is there any advantage to waiting after fermentation is completed?

 

Assuming you bottle, my suggestion is to draw off a bottle now with priming sugar and a measured dilution of filtered (boiled) water. Give that a couple weeks to condition and leave the rest in primary. See if you like it or not.

You could draw off a second bottle at the same time so you'd have a point of comparison.

 

Today you have an SG of 1.018. Tomorrow the SG might be 1.017. Big beers finish slower than a 1.042 beer will, for that reason SG readings three to five days apart, in my opinion, are better for preventing the fermentation completing inside the bottle. A fermentation completing inside the bottle is known as bottle bombs.

When the fermentation is complete CO2 is no longer produced. The CO2 in solution will suspend sediment and excess yeast. A longer primary will give the beer time to become crystal clear. There will always be sufficient yeast for bottle carbonation after racking to the bottling bucket.

 

Uh, I'm having trouble with the concept of a beer too strong....

 

Instead of diluting, have you considered blending? If you have the space, you could brew up a much lighter beer, once that's done, grab a sample off each, play with different ratios until you find what you like, then blend with the ratio of your liking.

I wouldn't dilute with water. I think that would do more harm (flavorwise) than good.

 

when you say too strong, are you concerned about the possibility of a hot alcohol taste? if so I'd say don't worry about it. There are more elements in play than just the straigfht ABV in determining what the taste profile is. A light beer with little hops presence will present as hot alcohol more than the same ABV in a porter or stout with more hops bittering and flavor. Taste yor beer for what it is, then make adjustments to your likeing. My first cider had a very hot alcohol taste. I treated it by adding a tablespoon of FAJC in the glass at the bottom of the pour. You might try some glass adjuncting if after final conditioning you decide the taste is not yet to your likeing.

 

Yes, the flavor and aroma contribution will be diluted. The IBU's will also be reduced, but the GU/BU (gravity units / bitterness units) ratio will not change. AFAIK it's pretty much agreed that the bitterness perception is about the balance, i.e. GU/BU ratio, so perceived bitterness shouldn't change.

 

If you have come up short in the amount of water in your batch there is absolutely nothing wrong with topping up with sanitised water in the fermenter to get the beer that you originally intended to brew. If you don't top up you will end up with a different beer than what you had planned which may or may not be a good thing but generally I like to plan my recipe in advance and stick to it so I would have no hesitation topping up as needed. In fact I just did this on a batch that I have currently fermenting, my calcs were for a 60 min boil but I boiled for 90 mins and very vigorously ending up 4 liters short. As I already had it chilled and in my fermenter ready to pitch, I just went ahead and pitched on the reduced volume of wort. The next day I boiled up 4 litres of water to sanitise it, chilled it and let it sit for a day in my fermenting fridge so that it was the same temp as the fermenting beer, then added it to the fermenter with fermentation already going strong. Sometimes I top up before pitching. This is actually a good technique for helping to get to a lower pitching temp as you can have sanitised chilled water ready for topping up with and drop the temp a few more degrees to reach ideal pitching temperature.

 

Thanks everyone! I've decided to keep the beer as is at the est ebv 7%. If I understand correctly, more hops are needed with higher content beers so I will try dry hopping.

 

I think keeping as-is is the best course. The difference in flavor between a 7% beer and a 6% beer is not going to be significant or probably even noticeable. Not worth risking changing the flavor characteristics by diluting.

 

Usually for stronger beers (higher ABV) you would want more bittering which comes from hops in the boil. Dry hopping won't get you any more bitterness but wonderful aroma.