First timer question

[nick22]

Hey guys.. so for my first brew I went true brew pale ale kit. I had bought an equipment kit off amazon that includes both bottling bucket and glass carboy.

My first problem was using one half gallon extra of water. Will this be a big problem?

Also I used the carboy for the primary fermentation. once I'm ready to bottle should I use siphon or just pour into bottling bucket which I could have just used in the first place instead of carboy.

Thanks

 

[twistr25]

Half gallon of extra water will dilute the wort some and should have given you a lower OG. It will decrease the ABV a little and will likely mute the hops as well. Definitely siphon over to the bottling bucket. After yeast has been added to the wort, you want to agitate the beer as little as possible afterwards. Pouring will oxygenate the beer staling it.

 

[andy6026]

The extra 1/2 gallon of water will simply water down the beer a bit. If you want to bring up your alcohol content to compensate then you could boil the requisite amount of sugar in a bit of water and add it to the fermenter. That will increase the alcohol but not much flavor. Otherwise you're fine leaving it as is.

To transfer to the the bottling bucket, definitely use the siphon - if you pour it then you risk heavily oxidizing the beer which at that stage is a very big no-no. I've never done it, but I hear it makes your beer taste like wet cardboard.

 

[stevehardt]

Just FYI, in the future if you ever have an extra half gallon or more, just increase the length of the boil and "boil off" the extra wort

 

[jpeebs]

I've actually heard/read that the more water you use, the better hop utilization you'll get. I try to use at least a half gallon extra and have never had watered down beer. Gravity hasn't been off from adding water either.

As for bottling, definitely siphon it into your bottling bucket. I think someone else mentioned already that it will oxidize if you just pour it in.

Good luck!

 

[twistr25]

I've actually heard/read that the more water you use, the better hop utilization you'll get. I try to use at least a half gallon extra and have never had watered down beer. Gravity hasn't been off from adding water either.

As for bottling, definitely siphon it into your bottling bucket. I think someone else mentioned already that it will oxidize if you just pour it in.

Good luck!

As long as you boil off the extra half gallon to get to the proper batch size that is fine. But if you leave that extra half gallon present you could have final product issues.

 

[flars]

Hey guys.. so for my first brew I went true brew pale ale kit. I had bought an equipment kit off amazon that includes both bottling bucket and glass carboy.

My first problem was using one half gallon extra of water. Will this be a big problem?

Also I used the carboy for the primary fermentation. once I'm ready to bottle should I use siphon or just pour into bottling bucket which I could have just used in the first place instead of carboy.

Thanks

An extra half gallon of water? Was this pre-boil? What is the volume of wort in the fermentor? If you have 5.5 gallons in the fermentor it is not a big problem. That is only a 10% dilution. Will almost make up for what is lost in volume in the trub.

The half gallon will not change hop utilization.

Don't add sugar to make up Original Gravity points. This will dry the beer and thin the mouth feel.

If you control the ferment temperature you will have a good brew. The half gallon overage will hardly be noticeable even in a side-by-side taste comparison.