Help with low OG!

[rikrcar21]

I recently purchased the "Smashing pumpkin" all grain BIAB kit from Northern Brewer. In the instructions it says to start with 5.5 gallons of water. I started with exactly 5.5 gallons of water and mashed in. After the 75 min mash and 60 min vigorous boil, I transferred the wort into my 5 gallon bucket and noticed I had just over 4 gallons of wort. I'm not sure where I went wrong here but the notes say I should have around 3 gallons. At this point I have a beer that should finish around 3.5abv.. Is there a way I can save this batch? I was thinking of going to my local home brew shop in the morning and getting 2.5 lbs of dry malt extract and boiling this for 15 min in a half a gallon of water and adding it into the bucket to bring my gravity back up to around the 1.052 mark. I have already pitched the yeast too. What would you recommend?

TLDR: Should have had 3 gallons of wort at 1.052 og and ended up with just over 4 gallons of wort at 1.047.. How can I save this batch?

 

[flars]

Do you mean 0.5 pounds DME? One pound of DME is worth 44 Points Per Gallon. You could add the DME to bring up the ABV or leave it as it is. The difference in ABV probably will not be noticeable. The decreased or thinned flavor will be noticeable, if you have made this recipe before.

If it were my brew I would add a medium DME. The ABV wouldn't be a problem to me, but the flavor loss would.

Your boil off rate was less than typical for the boil time, therefore you ended up with extra volume. Boil off rates are part of getting an all grain recipe just right. You could use this boil off rate to estimate the beginning volume for your next brew. I would also add volume marks to your boil kettle or to you stir spoon. With this you can do a longer boil if the volume is exceeding the recipe end point volume.