Can you help me save my brew?

[ViperMan]

Will try to keep this short...

Did my first all grain today - followed a very-slightly modified "Undead Guy Ale" recipe by Yooper.

By mistake I used too much sparge-water. Kinda misunderstood what I was doing and blah blah blah - I screwed up.

I ended up with 6.5 gallons instead of 5.5. I separated 5 into one bucket and 1.5 into another vessel that I'm going to experiment with some dry-hopping on ('cause I've always wanted to try it and see this as a good opportunity.) SO, I haven't pitched yeast 'cause I only had enough yeast for one batch, so I'm making a big starter that will allow me to pitch the 5 and the 1.5 at the same time...

HOWEVER, because of the excess water, my OG is WAY low - 1.59 instead of 1.69.

SO, I'm wondering if I can put all my wort back into my brew pot, add 1 pound (or more?) of DME and boil for maybe 30 minutes (or more?)

Does it hurt to reboil the wort? Will I lose any IBU's? Or is it better to just suck it up and finish with a (considerably) lower FG and learn my lesson for next time...?

Guidance is appreciated. Oh - one other problem - my LHBS is closed until Tuesday, so I can't do ANYTHING until then. Is it going to hurt my wort to let it sit for 3 days without yeast?

Thanks.

Jeff

 

[Reelale]

Will try to keep this short...

Did my first all grain today - followed a very-slightly modified "Undead Guy Ale" recipe by Yooper.

By mistake I used too much sparge-water. Kinda misunderstood what I was doing and blah blah blah - I screwed up.

I ended up with 6.5 gallons instead of 5.5. I separated 5 into one bucket and 1.5 into another vessel that I'm going to experiment with some dry-hopping on ('cause I've always wanted to try it and see this as a good opportunity.) SO, I haven't pitched yeast 'cause I only had enough yeast for one batch, so I'm making a big starter that will allow me to pitch the 5 and the 1.5 at the same time...

HOWEVER, because of the excess water, my OG is WAY low - 1.59 instead of 1.69.

SO, I'm wondering if I can put all my wort back into my brew pot, add 1 pound (or more?) of DME and boil for maybe 30 minutes (or more?)

Does it hurt to reboil the wort? Will I lose any IBU's? Or is it better to just suck it up and finish with a (considerably) lower FG and learn my lesson for next time...?

Guidance is appreciated. Oh - one other problem - my LHBS is closed until Tuesday, so I can't do ANYTHING until then. Is it going to hurt my wort to let it sit for 3 days without yeast?

Thanks.

Jeff

Just put it all back into your boil kettle and boil-off till you get your intended volume and/or gravity.

 

[KraphtBier]

^^^ This. Boil off the appropriate amount of water till you hit target gravity. IE if you built the recipe for five gallons, boil off till you hit that amount. Then cool the wort, transfer back into the fermenter, and pitch your yeast.

 

[HopLife]

I wouldn't reboil. The flavor added by late hop additions may be lost by extensive boiling that can remove volatile compounds that we percieve as taste.

 

[azscoob]

You have some options, you could boil it down to the correct volume/gravity and dry hop it a bit to get the aroma and some flavor back, or you could ferment out your 6.5 gallons. I would figurea loss of around 9 or 10 gravity points from the extra volume so you will end around a percentage point low on ABV this will effect the mouthfeel of the beer as well as the balance.

You could split the batch in half, ferment one as is and boil a half gallon from the other half. once fermented you could try a sample of each beer when you check FG and decide which you prefer, then look into dry hopping or whatever to further tinker with the batches.

If you split the batch you could get some valuable knowledge through experimentation on an otherwise buggered batch.

Just my two cents.

 

[LexusChris]

As stated above, if you were starting your boil, and realized you had too much, definitely boil it down for a bit to get your pre-boil volume as intended. However, once you start adding hop additions, the extra boil time may change a lot of the bitterness, flavor & aroma.

If you made it all the way to the transferring to the fermenter and you realized the error here, you could always add some honey or table sugar (1# or so) to boost the gravity. The sugar will disolve on its own and the yeasties will find it just fine. IMHO, no need to boil it or dissolve it prior to adding. Pitching with a proper amount of yeast will ensure that no other organizism will take hold.

Or, you can just enjoy the beer as a little more session'able than intended. 1.059 is not a weak beer... just sayin'...


-LexusChris

 

[BrewKnurd]

I vote let it ride at this point.

For future reference, this is why its good to check gravity throughout brew day. That way you can adjust your boil rate to make up for any gravity issues.

But for now, no worries, I bet it will be a very good beer!

 

[ViperMan]

Gotta ask though, discnjh - how do I check gravity throughout the brew cycle? My hydrometer is calibrated for operation at something like 60 degrees (which even at room temp never gets that low) so how can I check gravity when the wort is 200+?

 

[lemmiwinks]

Gotta ask though, discnjh - how do I check gravity throughout the brew cycle? My hydrometer is calibrated for operation at something like 60 degrees (which even at room temp never gets that low) so how can I check gravity when the wort is 200+?

Ladle some out and throw it in the freezer for a bit.

 

[thughes]

Gotta ask though, discnjh - how do I check gravity throughout the brew cycle? My hydrometer is calibrated for operation at something like 60 degrees (which even at room temp never gets that low) so how can I check gravity when the wort is 200+?

Draw off a sample (large enough to fill your hyrdo tube) into a sauce pan, put the sauce pan in an ice bath to cool for a bit, pour into the hydro tube, take reading, return sample to BK..............or buy a refractometer.

 

[bailiff48]

Or use online calculators to adjust for the temp of the wort.

 

[ViperMan]

Yeah I thought about the calculation bit as soon as I hit "reply"

Well for now I've done this:

I took the 1.25 gallons which I'm going to use to play around with dry hopping and added 1/4 pound of sugar which brought it up about .9 points. I'm going to pitch the yeast tonight and add dry hops as soon as I can get to my LHBS tomorrow. I think you only dry-hop for about a week, so I probably won't actually add those for a bit.

I'm going to take about a quart of water, bring it to a boil, and add about 1.1 pounds of DME - my calculations say that should add 10 points of OG. I'm going to add that to my 5 gallon primary. I won't get to do that until tomorrow evening (again LHBS is closed today) but will still pitch the yeast tonight so that it can at least get started.

And then I'm going to start working on my next all-grain so that I can continue to learn how to do it the right way the FIRST time.

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[BrewKnurd]

Or use online calculators to adjust for the temp of the wort.

I, personally, would still chill it a good bit before measuring. I'm not inclined to thermal shock glass that I don't know to by pyrex.

As a disclaimer, I have no idea how the average hydrometer holds up to being put into very hot wort. It may be perfectly fine. I'm just not going to test it out.