Guess I'm doing a split batch?

[palmtrees]

I brewed a New Zealand Pils this morning. It's a single malt recipe, and I was using some pilsner malt I buy in bulk. I have no idea how it happened, but I somehow measured out double the amount of grain I intended. I swear the scale had the right numbers on it, but it did take longer than usual to mill and my pot was definitely fuller than normal. I had a sneaking suspicion something was off, and confirmed it when I took a gravity sample at the end of the mash. 1.090, pre boil! With a goal post-boil gravity of 1.054! Yikes.

Sooooo I figured I could either make a 12% beer or double the batch. I don't have a 5 gallon fermenter, nor do I have space in my fermentation fridge for two fermenters. But luckily I have two 3 gallon fermenters and some Lutra lying around. So I doubled the hops I was planning to use (thankfully had enough of those lying around, too!), split the cooled wort into two fermenters, and added a few extra gallons of water to hit my target OG in both. I will do my intended lager yeast in the one with temp control, and then I pitched Lutra in the other one, which I will leave at room temp.

I guess today is a hearty recommendation for buying hops in bulk and banking yeast slurry! Oh and for measuring twice. (I did check my scale later, and it seemed accurate with a gallon of water, so I have no clue what happened.) Hopefully the recipe doesn't suck because I'll have plenty!

 

[rburrelli]

You made the best of the situation. You should be fine.

 

[Knightshade]

I'd tell people that you did that on purpose, so you could examine the effects of different yeasts on the same malt/hop bill. White Labs does it all the time in their tasting rooms.

 

[JAReeves]

I brewed a New Zealand Pils this morning. It's a single malt recipe, and I was using some pilsner malt I buy in bulk. I have no idea how it happened, but I somehow measured out double the amount of grain I intended. I swear the scale had the right numbers on it, but it did take longer than usual to mill and my pot was definitely fuller than normal. I had a sneaking suspicion something was off, and confirmed it when I took a gravity sample at the end of the mash. 1.090, pre boil! With a goal post-boil gravity of 1.054! Yikes.

Sooooo I figured I could either make a 12% beer or double the batch. I don't have a 5 gallon fermenter, nor do I have space in my fermentation fridge for two fermenters. But luckily I have two 3 gallon fermenters and some Lutra lying around. So I doubled the hops I was planning to use (thankfully had enough of those lying around, too!), split the cooled wort into two fermenters, and added a few extra gallons of water to hit my target OG in both. I will do my intended lager yeast in the one with temp control, and then I pitched Lutra in the other one, which I will leave at room temp.

I guess today is a hearty recommendation for buying hops in bulk and banking yeast slurry! Oh and for measuring twice. (I did check my scale later, and it seemed accurate with a gallon of water, so I have no clue what happened.) Hopefully the recipe doesn't suck because I'll have plenty!

How did this turn out? As I am running out of time for my brewdays currently, I was thinking of doubling the mash and then thinning out the wort with sanitized (pre-boiled) water in order to get two separate 5G batches into two fermenters. Did you notice any flavor changes or complications or anything.

 

[JaggersBrewingCo]

I'd tell people that you did that on purpose, so you could examine the effects of different yeasts on the same malt/hop bill. White Labs does it all the time in their tasting rooms.

This right here!