Make up water charge during boil.. did I mess up

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Lemieuxp

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I recently brewed my first batch. It was Brewers Best Red Ale. At about 45 mins into the batch at boil, I added about a half gallon of water to my pot. It went through another "Heat Break". I did this because people terrified me about contamination so I figured if I added it during the boil, I would minimize any contamination. Is this a bad thing?

I have it in the fermentor and she's bubbling away, just curious on how this may impact taste...

Thanks in advance for any responses!
 
It could throw your hop IBUs off from the recipe. Since the recipe was based on brewing a partial boil. For the future, to save yourself time, boil your top off water 2 or 3 days before your brew day and chill it down as close to freezing as you can without turning it to ice. On your brew day, you have boiled water that is safe and ice cold. You can then add that water to your kettle when you go to chill. This helps chill your hot wort faster and ensures that you have relatively germ free water to top off your partial boil.
 
Sounds like a plan for my next batch. The kit said to boil 2.5 gals or more if you are equiped to do so. Since I had a 6.5gal kettle, I said why not boil the whole 5 gallons.... By boiling 2.5 gals and adding chilled ( previously boiled) water to make up the OG, it would sure speed things up.

Thank you very much for your input!
 
Just to throw my two cetnts in here, the chilled top-off method is great for adding adjunct flavors in. For example, its how i like to add sugars (honey, Molassas, etc) or other flavors to the brew... when i'm planning properly...
 
This is a great site full of people with experience! Thanks for the chilled top off water. Doesn't seem like I should be as concerned about contamination as much as I have been during this part of the process.. Thanks for the comments! Anything else I should know that isn't written on the little paper that comes with the kit?
 
FWIW, I've never boiled my top-off water and have never had an issue with contamination from the tap. If you are intent on boiling your top-off water, make sure you sanitize whatever you'll be putting the water into unless the water is above 160 or boiling it first will be pointless.

Good luck on future brews!
 
FWIW, I've never boiled my top-off water and have never had an issue with contamination from the tap.

I have never had an issue with this either. If I am doing an extract batch I am looking for speed as it is probably a weeknight brew. I take a temp on the cold tap water while the boil is going so that I can calculate where I need to chill to so that when I add the cold tap water I hit pitching temp.

I would not waste time adding water mid boil that would seem to through off consistency in hop utilization and make repeatability tough.
 

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