Adding water/dme to fermenter to increase volume?

[stooby]

I could give you a rundown on how I got to this point but I'll just stay on topic. Ended up with 8 gal - 10 gal recipe. Gravity is fine and I was gonna live with it but I started thinking about the hop ratio - I'd also like those 2 gal back! Can I add some water and dme to bump up the volume? Or just keep going and hope for the best. Been in the fermenter about 12 hours

 

[doug293cz]

You could boil enough DME in 2 gal of water to get the same OG as your original wort. You only need to boil for ~5 min in order to make sure you kill off any nasties. This will get you your target volume, but I don't think it will fix any issue with hop utilization during the original boil, but that may not be a significant issue anyway.

Brew on

 

[stooby]

Yeah, I'm thinking I'll just let it go and see how it tastes. Probably not a good idea to start experimenting like a mad scientist now

 

[RPh_Guy]

I don't like the taste of malt extract, although plenty of people do.

 

[kbaggen]

Since you are rather a good time into/beyound the cell dvision now, hence, the O2 uptake will be low, so I would be carefull to add so much water as it will hold a lot O2. If the OG was to high I would have done it right after the transfer to ferment-wessel. So best advice is to leave it as it is as the OG suits you!

I guess it is fine to add a smaller amout of water during fermentatio to add adjuncts, frutis etc. but 20% might be to much, hence, leave it!

Klaus
www.posebryg.dk

 

[RM-MN]

Since you are rather a good time into/beyound the cell dvision now, hence, the O2 uptake will be low, so I would be carefull to add so much water as it will hold a lot O2. If the OG was to high I would have done it right after the transfer to ferment-wessel. So best advice is to leave it as it is as the OG suits you!

I guess it is fine to add a smaller amout of water during fermentatio to add adjuncts, frutis etc. but 20% might be to much, hence, leave it!

Klaus
www.posebryg.dk

If the water is boiled to dissolve the DME, nearly all the O2 will be driven out. With careful addition of the DME/water one should not be introducing much O2. Adding that much fermentable material would kick up the action of the yeast too.

 

[@RoyalGallon]

I've a similar query.
Have brewed a Leffe Radieus clone (As per here) it's fermented down from 1080 to 1012 and tastes great but at 8.2% ABV I think it's going to be too much. Okay for a taste but how much can you drink in one go?

If I de-aerated some water by boiling then added after crash cooling with fininings would this be the same as commercial high-gravity brewing?

What are the risks / pitfalls you can see?

 

[RM-MN]

I've a similar query.
Have brewed a Leffe Radieus clone (As per here) it's fermented down from 1080 to 1012 and tastes great but at 8.2% ABV I think it's going to be too much. Okay for a taste but how much can you drink in one go?

If I de-aerated some water by boiling then added after crash cooling with fininings would this be the same as commercial high-gravity brewing?

What are the risks / pitfalls you can see?

The problem with that approach is that while you dilute the alcohol, you also dilute the flavor which will lead to a watery beer. There are two solutions to that that I can think of. First is to brew another batch with much less base malt to decrease the amount of alcohol without decreasing the flavor, then mix the two to reduce the alcohol content. The second is to just drink less of it at a time.

 

[wilserbrewer]

If I de-aerated some water by boiling then added after crash cooling with fininings would this be the same as commercial high-gravity brewing?

?

The same? Of course not...perhaps similar.

How many trial batches have the commercial guys been thru to hone the process?

Maybe your pallet will be pleased w/ your result, ymmv.

Perhaps try a sample dilution in a pint glass w/ carbonated water before changing the entire batch.

 

[@RoyalGallon]

The same? Of course not...perhaps similar.

How many trial batches have the commercial guys been thru to hone the process?

Maybe your pallet will be pleased w/ your result, ymmv.

Perhaps try a sample dilution in a pint glass w/ carbonated water before changing the entire batch.

A trial dilution - of course, can't believe this didn't occur to me.

There's a lot of flavour, body and alcohol in this so I think it's robust enough to be diluted without tasting watery. There's now two ways to find out!

 

[RPh_Guy]

Diluting with beer isn't better than with water.

Here's an example with easy math.
Suppose you have a 1 gal 10% ABV beer made from 4lb grain/gal and you want 5% ABV.
So let's dilute...
Water: Add 1 gal water.
Result is 2 gal beer with 2lb grain/gal.

Beer: You need 2 gal of 2.5% ABV with 1lb grain/gal.
Result is 3 gal beer with 2lb grain/gal.