I have 4 gallons of REALLY strong beer...will adding another gallon of water be bad?

Basically,
Me and a buddy made the beer with the expectation that it would render 20 total gallons. We each kept 10. Well, after fermenting, I have 5 in one and 4 in the other. And the beer is really strong.
So, how bad an idea would it be to boil a gallon of water than just dump it into the batch and let sit in secondary for a few weeks?

 

What's really strong. Did you take a gravity reading before pitching? What was it? And do you have a FG for it?

 

If you are worried about the taste, I would recommend just waiting it out. Being a bigger beer than intended won't make it worse, just will take longer to condition into maturity.

If it were me I would just leave it as is, but I have heard of people adding water at bottling time to get more beer into bottles. If planned for I think it works decently well, but if I were you I think I would just leave it as is.

 

No idea what the FG is...I just tasted it after the primary and its got some kick. I will leave as is and see how it goes. I will update in a few weeks to let you guys know how secondary went...

 

I would hate to put water in it. I agree to wait it out and let it fully condition.

I wonder is blending it with another batch would be something to try, instead of just adding water. I would think that adding water would just add to a thin mouth feel or just make it feel off.

 

As long as it just tastes strong and not cloyingly sweet, I would just let it mellow out.

Although, if the strong you describe is actually a hot alcohol taste, that might not mean that it is strong more than it means it fermented at too high off a temp.

 

If you do add water, make sure you boil out the dissolved oxygen first.

 

I have blended some before. Worked out just fine...but it was 20 gallons worth...