Didn't put enough water in fermenter

[ongreystreet]

Didn't put enough make-up water in primary(extract kit), I am about half a gallon short, it's almost a week into primary. I don't want to add extra right now, but I thought I might be able to make up some of the difference either going into secondary or when I dissolve my bottling sugar. I know it will still be good either way, probably just later abv, but if I decide to add the water, when would you suggest?

 

[Ace_Club]

Unless it's a high gravity ale, I'd skip the secondary. Also, take a sample and taste it prior to bottling. Chances are that it will taste fine and you shouldn't worry about the missing volume.

 

[pkeeler]

If you put it in the secondary, you should boil it good and cool it. Since you would be doing that (boiling and cooling) anyway when bottling, it would be easiest to do it when bottling. In fact, the more I think about it the more I'd lean towards bottling. Here you will be restarting fermentation which could mop up any oxygen in the added water.

 

[ongreystreet]

If you put it in the secondary, you should boil it good and cool it. Since you would be doing that (boiling and cooling) anyway when bottling, it would be easiest to do it when bottling. In fact, the more I think about it the more I'd lean towards bottling. Here you will be restarting fermentation which could mop up any oxygen in the added water.

I figure I'd just maybe I'd dissolve my sugar in like 10 cups of boiled water instead of 2, or dissolve it in 2 cups and add it to another 8 cups of boiled water, then rack on top of it.

 

[VTBrewer]

I wouldn't bother. That's just watering down your beer IMO.

 

[RukusDM]

i wouldn't bother. That's just watering down your beer imo.

+1

 

[huntb]

I just bottled a batch of extract / specialty today and instead of the 53 recommended bottles I only got 38... not too worried because the sample tasted fine. More upset that I got blue balled thinking I was gonna get 15 more bottles

 

[YeastHerder]

My first batch I didn't adjust for boil off at all, wound up with 4 gallons instead of the target 5 gallons in the fermenter. I was concerned there might somehow be a 'concentrated' taste of something in the finished product, but that wasn't the case at all, it was fine.

 

[wolfstar]

Just bottle it and don't worry about the volume at this point...

In the end, you will end up with about the same amount of actual alchohol, just a higher concentration if that matters to you.

It may be a bit more robust in flavor, but who cares, it'll probably still taste great, and still be beer.

 

[BrewScout]

This same exact thing happened to me on my first batch. Beer turned out fine. Just a slightly darker blonde at about 7% abv! You learned something and you still made beer! That's a win win in my book!