First batch...have some questions.

[kmyst]

Hi all,

Joined the forum a while back and have been reading quite a bit. I brewed my first batch of beer a while back. It has already been in the secondary for a few weeks and is definitely ready to bottle. The problem is this: I had a tiny (1/4 gallon or so) boil over and quite a bit of evaporation. When I put the wort in the primary with the 2.5 gallons of water I had around 3 gallons or so. I went ahead and added more water to bring it up to around 4 gallons or so. In hindsight I should have brought it up to 5 gallons...at the time I didn't know if adding water would mess anything up but risked the extra gallon. It has been racked to the secondary and ready to bottle and I sampled it. It is a tad strong but not too bad. I wouldn't mind diluting it a bit and adding enough water to bring it up to 5 gallons but I don't know if this would be a bad idea. Would it hurt the beer to add the 1 gallon of water at bottling time? I figured I'd add the priming solution to my bottling bucket, plus the 1 gallon of water, then siphon the beer out of the secondary into the bottling bucket and bottle it. Good idea or bad idea?

Thanks,
kmyst

 

[BuffaloSabresBrewer]

great idea
no seriously no sarcasm

 

[Ooompa Loompa]

Yup, if it's too strong then you can definately water it down a bit if you want.