Diluting - in fermenter or at bottling?

[mpruett]

I've been searching the forum and looking around the web, and I can't find a good answer to the question.

Put simply, I underestimated my boil-off percentage, and ended up with about 4 to 4.5 gallons of 1.070 classic american pilsner instead of 5 to 5.25 gallons of 1.060 classic american pilsner.

I've been thinking of diluting it out to 1.055-1.060, but I haven't figured out if I should do it now before the yeast (Fermentis 34/70) really kicks in, or if I should just ferment it out and dilute it at priming and bottling.

I read that high gravity lagers like mine may be more estery than I'd like, but then again, diluting at bottling reduces the likelihood of infection, I'd think.

Anyone have any ideas about this?

 

[BendBrewer]

Add it now. If you have 4.25 gallons at 1.070 and you bring it up to 5 gallons you should end up with 1.059.

Your reading will be off so don't even bother taking it. Trust the math.

 

[mpruett]

Done! Let's see what happens. Hopefully this won't mess up the yeast during their lag phase too badly.

 

[fixitoscar]

it will be fine. just top it off now. I think f you did it at bottling you would have a watered down tasting beer.

 

[Golddiggie]

Personally, I would have let it ride at the amount of volume you ended up with... Having esters has more to do with the fermentation temperature and yeast combination (from what I've experienced at least)... An OG of 1.070 would be a solid brew, just finishing a bit stronger than you had originally intended.

Since this seems like an all-grain batch, how low the FG is depends more on how the mash went...

Only needing to add 2-4 quarts doesn't seem like all that much, at least to me. Now, if you boiled down to 3 gallons, I might be more inclined to add some water back in, to get it closer to the original fermenting volume.

No matter which route you would take (seeing how you topped it off already) you'll end up with good brew... Topping off the bottles post fermentation would have given you something more akin to BCM (in my opinion) which I don't think any of us would really want... Of course, if you were looking to brew more of the original recipe, not what you get today, that could be something great.

 

[mpruett]

My mash (9 lb/75% 6 row, 3 lb/25% flaked corn, batch sparge) was spot-on what BeerSmith predicted- the exact pre-boil gravity (1.051), which assumed a 75% efficiency.

The software predicted a 1.060 post-boil gravity, but I ended up with 1.070, so I assume that I boiled off more than I expected. This was only my second brew (first all-grain) in this pot, so I'm not quite used to it yet.

At any rate, I added a gallon of water on Monday night (2 days ago), and it was fermenting last night just fine.

 

[madbaldman]

Personally, I would have let it ride at the amount of volume you ended up with...

I made the same mistake with a Simcoe IPA and decided to let it ride at the higher gravity. It's still in the fermenter but time will tell. Sometimes those "mistakes" lead to great beer.

 

[Golddiggie]

Wish I had done it with my old ale partial mash I brewed up... I ended up topping off with about 2 quarts of water post boil... Looking back I'm kicking myself for doing that. Next time, I won't add more water post boil. If there's not enough volume to make the target batch size, then it will just be a smaller batch. :rockin:

 

[Snowhere]

Wish I had done it with my old ale partial mash I brewed up... I ended up topping off with about 2 quarts of water post boil... Looking back I'm kicking myself for doing that. Next time, I won't add more water post boil. If there's not enough volume to make the target batch size, then it will just be a smaller batch. :rockin:

Why do you regret it Gold? I do it all the time as my new, wider pot tends to boil off more then I expected. My last porter came off the boil at 5.5 gals of 11% possible alc, so I just added a gallon and ended up with 6.5gal of 8-9%. My target was 7 gal, so I was still a little short but I did not want to add that much water.

 

[Golddiggie]

Why do you regret it Gold? I do it all the time as my new, wider pot tends to boil off more then I expected. My last porter came off the boil at 5.5 gals of 11% possible alc, so I just added a gallon and ended up with 6.5gal of 8-9%. My target was 7 gal, so I was still a little short but I did not want to add that much water.

Because I would have preferred to have less volume of something stronger... It came out at 8.1% ABV... If only I had left it alone...

Plus, I might have diluted the overall body/character of it just a bit... I will have to make it again, only not dilute it any.

 

[maltbarleyhops]

im of the school that i want to know if my mistakes are that or are they genius. if it were me i would have left it alone and whined about how i could have a few extra tamer (less flavor and less ABV) beers while hoisting a nicer, stronger beer.

trust me, unless your doing a "house" type beer for everyone to enjoy, you would have rather had it in its"original" form.

...or maybe not...lol

Slainte'

 

[dzlater]

This is probably fairly obvious but it's a good idea is to check your volume half way through the boil so you know if you are on track to hit your target volume. If you are off you can make adjustments either way to correct it.

 

[mpruett]

I do need to inscribe volume markings in the kettle, or on some kind of stick so I can determine volume at all phases of the boil.

I'm brewing this more or less for others- my wife and I's baby is due in early August, so I'm brewing this as a sort of hospitality & celebration beer for family and friends who show up around then. Some of them are kind of elderly, so I don't know about a 1.070 OG beer for them. I'm not even sure about a 1.060 OG beer, but it's a compromise between what I want and what's probably good for them.

I'm following more or less the traditional maibock schedule, just a few months earlier (March-July, not May-September).

I figure I can brew ales in the meantime, while the chill chest is occupied.

 

[mpruett]

You know, that's the Oktoberfest schedule, not the Maibock schedule... D'oh!