is it too late to add water??

[Polboy]

Brew my 3rd AG last night, i guess i tighten my grinder too much cuz i got stuck mash and couldn't drain all the way but after adding some of my sparge water it went through but after 60min boil i got less than 9 gal instead of expected 10+. Im still getting to know my equipment so maybe that was volume i should get but from 23lbs of grain 7gal of mash and 7.5gal of sparge i got only <9 seems off to me. Anyway i didnt add more water at the end (it was 1.30am and i had only tap water) and just pitched my yeast thinking i will get less but stronger beer but this morning i kind of regretted, i was making amber ale but from 1.061 OG and SRM at 19 im little too high for amber ales,
My question is: can i add more water 20h after pitching yeast?, (it is already bubbling a lot, i pitched from the cake) or i should just let it ferment as it is?

 

[joeybeer]

I'm interested to know the answer to this too.
I've been thinking about brewing bigger beers and diluting to sessionable strength.

 

[FromZwolle]

as long as it's clean water, go for it.

 

[njnear76]

I would boil it first. I'm not sure if you want to add oxygen at this point.

 

[Yooper]

Yes, you can. BUT........what was the OG supposed to be? I'd rather have the correct OG rather than a certain volume, and the hops and malt are balanced for the OG you got with the recipe. If your OG is too high, than I'd add water to dilute it to the correct OG. Otherwise, I wouldn't mess with it.

 

[joeybeer]

I found an awesome article !

 

[Brewchitect]

personally I wouldn't. You could introduce something and get infected. I would just adjust your water quantity for next time. If you are going to do it, I'd boil the water first then let it cool to the exact same temp as the fermenting beer so as not to shock the yeast. Maybe it would be wise to wait until bottling time to add the water? Just let fermentation do its thing first.

 

[Polboy]

I was aiming for around 1.054 got 1.061 so 7 points more, i have one bucket with 4.5gal and another with around 4.2 and i was actually trying to make 10gal batch, it just come short. I boiled 1gal water this morning so it should be cool when i get home i guess i will add 0.6 and 0.45 gal respectively
Thanks guys

Yes, you can. BUT........what was the OG supposed to be? I'd rather have the correct OG rather than a certain volume, and the hops and malt are balanced for the OG you got with the recipe. If your OG is too high, than I'd add water to dilute it to the correct OG. Otherwise, I wouldn't mess with it.

 

[TheHomebrewConnection]

I would sterilize your brew pot, boil your water, cool it to the matching temp of your beer and add it during your transfer to secondary. We do it all the time and never have negative results, just slightly weaker beer. You would also need to do a hydrometer adjustment to calculate your true FG.

 

[Yooper]

I was aiming for around 1.054 got 1.061 so 7 points more, i have one bucket with 4.5gal and another with around 4.2 and i was actually trying to make 10gal batch, it just come short. I boiled 1gal water this morning so it should be cool when i get home i guess i will add 0.6 and 0.45 gal respectively
Thanks guys

That will give you an OG of 1.055 so it sounds fine!

 

[Polboy]

and one bonus question, how much of cooled, post 60min boil worth would you get from your equipment if you would use the same condition as me (23lbs of grain, 7gal mash and 7.5 sparge water), i want to know how much volume im loosing compared to other people

 

[Yooper]

and one bonus question, how much of cooled, post 60min boil worth would you get from your equipment if you would use the same condition as me (23lbs of grain, 7gal mash and 7.5 sparge water), i want to know how much volume im loosing compared to other people

I usually "lose" .125 gallons of water per pound of grain in the mash. So, that would be 2.875 gallons that I'd not have after the mash. I boil off about 1.5 gallons per hour.

So, I mash with 1.25 quarts of water per pound of grain. That's a tad over 7 gallons, and I'd get out 4.31 gallons. I'd then sparge with about the same amount you did- to get a boil volume of 12 gallons. I'd end up with 10.5 in the boil kettle, and then 5 gallon in each fermenter since I leave about .5 gallons in the kettle as trub losses.

You could start with mashing more- 1.5 quarts per pound and then plan on sparging up to your boil volume. That would probably make it a little easier to figure out your volumes. Do you know how much you boil off in the hour boil? Did you take a preboil gravity?

 

[Polboy]

i didnt take preboil gravity (im new but i dont see a point of doing that, even after temp adjustment it is not very accurate and i dont like to handel neer boiling liquids), im not also sure how much i boil of but im using open kegel and big a$$ burner than i have to keep less than half open to have a nice roll. Im biggest problem is that my boiling kegel is european 50 litters size, that is 13.2 US gal and not 15.5 which would be perfect for 10gal batches, with 13.2 i have to be really on spot with my preboil volumes and watch the flame a lot to catch boilovers

 

[xenophobe2020]

I found an awesome article !

wow, nice find. thanks for sharing. I could see a lot of practical uses in my own setup for brewing like that......

 

[joeybeer]

Me too .. Splitting a 5gal batch into "strong" and "session" will be cool.. Let's face it, you can't bring a 7.5% IPA to a superbowl party

 

[joeybeer]

The plot thickens !
Check out these calcs : http://homedistiller.org/dilute.htm. (near the bottom of the page)
I could have put 1.75 gallons of water in a corny and filled it with the 6.1% APA to make beach beer !!

To make it even easier, I sent the article I linked before to a brewing friend that's an engineer and his response was :

Sounds like a pain to have to boil it and cool it quickly, but not a bad
idea. I think you could put a top on it and cool it slowly. Here's an idea
so that it doesn't implode. Boil 2 or 4 gallons water (for 5 gallon or 10
gallon batch). Then dump the boiling water into a corny keg. Immediately
seal it and pump in come CO2. drain out the o2 once or twice and refill
with CO2. There will be no oxygen to absorb and because you pressurized it,
it will not want to implode as it cools.


Does anyone know how to calculate what psi I'd need to keep the corny from collapsing ?