Add Water?

[artnunes]

I'm brewing my first batch of beer and I forgot to add water during the boil to bring the volume back to 5 gallons. The beer is now fermenting. Is it too late to add water to bring it back up to 5 gallons? I estimate there is about 4.25 gallons at this time.

Thanks,

 

[Yooper]

You can add water if you want to.

Did you check the specific gravity before you pitched the yeast? That's what I use to decide if I need to add water or not. If the SG is ok, I just leave it. If the SG is a bit too high, I'll add water. That's my deciding factor, so that my beer is balanced according to the recipe.

 

[Nukesquad]

When was your brew date? If it's already in full-blown fermentation, I would hold off on it. You'll end up with less quantity in the end, but at least it will have a stronger kick.

 

[Pluto035]

I'm new around here myself, but I recently had the same thing happen to me. I just bottled it that way and it still came out great, just a bit stronger. If you do want to add water, you can boil more water with your priming sugar when you go to bottle.

 

[cvstrat]

Boiling causes evaportation which condenses sugars in your wort. Your starting gravity reading is based off of the post-boil/pre-fermenting gravity. Odds are if you boiled off more than you were supposed to (boiling too vigorously, wider pot, etc) your starting gravity will be higher due to the more concentrater sugar content.

If your OG was supposed to be 1.05 and it ends up being 1.065 for example, you could simply add more water and give a good stir before transfering to the carboy/bucket. Ultiamately you would only add enough water to bring your gravity down to the recommended reading or until you hit desired volume, whichever comes first.

Get a stick or piece of long and skinny pvc pipe or something. Put gallon of water in the boil kettle and mark the stick/pipe with permanent marker or a notch. Repeat over and over until you get about 7 gallons marked. Between gallons 4 and 7 mark half gallon increments. As you boil drop the stick in and it should tell you what your volume is. Sample your wort 15 mins before the end of the boil and cool it, check gravity. If you are a half gallon short, gravity is probably gonna be over target. If so add water now and keep finish the boil. THis way you don't rack to primary just to find out you have way too little volume.

 

[artnunes]

Thanks everyone. Since I spaced out by not taking the SG prior to fermentation and its fermenting away I'll let it be and hope for the best.

Art

 

[zac]

It will be beer, slightly stonger that you thought, but still.... BEER.

Dont worry. I put in the fermenter what I get off the boil. sometimes its 6 gallons, sometimes its 4. It always makes beer, and its always good beer.