Messed up a recipe by adding UK gallons and not US gallons

[Furious_Tea]

Just completed a batch of Irish Red Ale and the recipe stated "gallons", being from the UK I added UK gallons. Before I pitched the yeast I tested the OG and it came out as 1.034 as opposed to the stated 1.044.

I've now realised that (although not stated) the recipe is for US gallons as opposed to UK gallons.

This means that I have added around 4.5 litres of extra water!

This is the reason the gravity is so low and will likely result in a low % weak tasting beer. I have calculated that this will result in somewhere between 3 and 3.5% final ABV. This is very disappointing and I feel this batch is now pretty much ruined. Is there anything I can do to remedy this?

 

[balrog]

I suppose you could quickly heat up 1/2gal (US or UK) water, add 1 to 1-1/2 pounds(US) DME and bring to boil or just 180 for a few minutes to sanitize, cool, and add. But do you have DME/LME and do you have the extra ferm space? A pound would raise the overall SG to (counting quickly on fingers here, 1.034, 6gal, add 0.5gal, 1.5 lb DME = 204pts + ~60pts = 264/6.5 =~) 1.041

EDIT: But if you've pitched yeast, I would just it go.

 

[mongoose33]

You're going to get beer, just not the beer you expected. You might find it's something interesting.

And FWIW: If you think you're the first brewer to screw things up....

 

[Furious_Tea]

I suppose you could quickly heat up 1/2gal (US or UK) water, add 1 to 1-1/2 pounds(US) DME and bring to boil or just 180 for a few minutes to sanitize, cool, and add. But do you have DME/LME and do you have the extra ferm space? A pound would raise the overall SG to (counting quickly on fingers here, 1.034, 6gal, add 0.5gal, 1.5 lb DME = 204pts + ~60pts = 264/6.5 =~) 1.041

EDIT: But if you've pitched yeast, I would just it go.

I pitched the yeast around 3 hours ago, yeah. I got some corn sugar with the kit for priming, but it's only 5oz. Not nearly enough to have that much of a difference.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

You're far from the first British homebrewer to get caught by the short measures found in the colonies!

Don't sweat it - even if you don't do anything it will be fine, you will have beer, just a more sessionable one than planned.

If you can easily get some DME, then use that - you should be able to get away with using less water, dissolve maybe 500g in 1 litre.

But if you want a reasonable approximation to it, then get a 454g tin of golden syrup and slowly stir it in using a sterilised spoon. It's a common hack to approximate invert sugar #1 which is often used in beers.

But relax, don't worry, have a homebrew....

 

[MaaZeus]

If you really need all the alcohol you originally wanted and you cannot get DME anywhere then quickly run into the grocery store and just buy some sugar and pour about 300-500 grams in. It will dissolve on its own and the yeast will find it. Before someone burns me on a stake for this comment I know sugar will thin the body because it just adds alcohol into the brew but this little amount in an otherwise malty wort won't make it too thin if you ask me. Obviously it won't improve the hop characteristic though.

 

[balrog]

I did not think of the Lyles @Northern_Brewer , excellent idea!

 

[Furious_Tea]

So I just decided to do nothing with this, and just leave it as a low % ale, but it has been irking me over the past few days. I'm thinking of racking some of it off into either one or two 1 gallon (UK!) demijohns and experiment with it a little. I was thinking of getting some DME or LME and mixing that with just enough water to dissolve it, then racking some of the Irish Red Ale off onto that for a secondary fermentation, and later dry hopping it for an extra flavour boost. Has anyone ever done this or is it too late now?

Another idea is to fortify one with some kind of high percentage alcohol, maybe irish whiskey or a dark rum, or vodka and maybe some kind of fruit, maybe a berry.

Are these viable options?

Thanks

 

[Calder]

do NOT add plain sugar, or even any treacle. It will just ferment out. It will raise the alcohol, but will also make the beer drier and thinner.

If you add anything, just add extract (dry or liquid). Dissolve in water at a rate of 1 pint of water to 1 lb of extract. Extract will add a little body in addition to alcohol. It can be added at any time, even after fermentation is complete ...... well, it will re-start fermentation.

I recommend leaving it alone, and chalking it up to experience. It will still make beer, and might end up being a 'decent' session beer.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

do NOT add plain sugar, or even any treacle. It will just ferment out. It will raise the alcohol, but will also make the beer drier and thinner.

Which is absolutely to style for British beers. It's completely normal to use 10-15% invert in British beers. USians think that British beers in general are way sweeter than they actually are.

And you don't know golden syrup - it has 10% protein and other stuff, it's not pure sugar.

@ FT - no it's never too late to mess about with things. Adding extract or syrup for additional fermentation is maybe more conventional. I wouldn't add white spirits, but a little dark spirit could be interesting - be wary though, it's easy to over do it. Adding fruit to this kind of beer probably wouldn't be my first choice, but you're the head brewer, you do what you want.

 

[Calder]

Which is absolutely to style for British beers. It's completely normal to use 10-15% invert in British beers. USians think that British beers in general are way sweeter than they actually are.

And you don't know golden syrup - it has 10% protein and other stuff, it's not pure sugar.

He has already diluted the beer. Adding plain sugar to a 3% beer is not going to help it!

And I've certainly drunk my fair share of English beer .... and more!

Yes, I do know what Golden Syrup is. It may have proteins and 'stuff'. I am not going to argue that point, but when you get down to it, it is basically flavored sugar and will almost completely ferment out ...... just like sugar. It will not add any body.

 

[divrack]

Or to look at it another way, you just gave yourself ten percent extra beer. Celebrations.

 

[RM-MN]

So I just decided to do nothing with this, and just leave it as a low % ale, but it has been irking me over the past few days. I'm thinking of racking some of it off into either one or two 1 gallon (UK!) demijohns and experiment with it a little. I was thinking of getting some DME or LME and mixing that with just enough water to dissolve it, then racking some of the Irish Red Ale off onto that for a secondary fermentation, and later dry hopping it for an extra flavour boost. Has anyone ever done this or is it too late now?

Another idea is to fortify one with some kind of high percentage alcohol, maybe irish whiskey or a dark rum, or vodka and maybe some kind of fruit, maybe a berry.

Are these viable options?

Thanks

I'm not entirely certain that you even need to dissolve the extract in water first. I suspect that if you simply add extract to the demijohn and rack the beer onto it the yeast will easily find it and be happy to eat all of it. Your beer will have plenty of yeast suspended in it to do the job.

 

[Miraculix]

I think one additional thing which is often forgotten but should be mentioned in regards to invert sugar and therefore golden syrup as well, is that it contains a higher percentage of glucose than "normal" sugars. Glucose is known to boost Esther production so at the end it might even increase flavour, although being highly fermentable.
This is somehow used in German wheat beer production to boost the flavour, but don't ask me what's the specific name of the process.

 

[Furious_Tea]

Thanks for the replies, I've learnt a lot this past week. I decided against adding any spirit alcohol, I'll save that for another test, maybe the 'oak chips soaked in spirits' method.

It was eating away at me though, looking every night at those 23L of potentially weak tasting beer, so as an experiment I heated up 200g (1/2 a pound-ish?) of Medium DME with some water, cooled and added to 4.5L demijohn and I also made a hop tea with some spare hops I thought could work and also boiled 100g of Medjool dates, mashed them up then strained and added that too, then I racked the red ale onto that. It's happily bubbling away now.

I made 450ml of extra liquid in all (10% of the total volume of the demijohn), then I took 10ml of that, added 90ml of water and took a gravity reading of that, which was 1.021.

Am I too far off the mark if I add 0.021 to my OG (1.034) and take that as my OG (so 1.055)?

This beer is just for me and maybe some friends/family to drink so doesn't need to be precise, but a ballpark figure of the final ABV would be nice.

Thanks.

(Oh and while I did this I also had a little taste of the original red ale, it was weak tasting and only 7 days into fermentation, but honestly it wasn't that bad! It didn't make me heave anyway, which is always good! Might dry hop or do a hop tea for that also, or just leave it and see how it turns out)

 

[divrack]

Thanks for the replies, I've learnt a lot this past week. I decided against adding any spirit alcohol, I'll save that for another test, maybe the 'oak chips soaked in spirits' method.

It was eating away at me though, looking every night at those 23L of potentially weak tasting beer, so as an experiment I heated up 200g (1/2 a pound-ish?) of Medium DME with some water, cooled and added to 4.5L demijohn and I also made a hop tea with some spare hops I thought could work and also boiled 100g of Medjool dates, mashed them up then strained and added that too, then I racked the red ale onto that. It's happily bubbling away now.

I made 450ml of extra liquid in all (10% of the total volume of the demijohn), then I took 10ml of that, added 90ml of water and took a gravity reading of that, which was 1.021.

Am I too far off the mark if I add 0.021 to my OG (1.034) and take that as my OG (so 1.055)?

This beer is just for me and maybe some friends/family to drink so doesn't need to be precise, but a ballpark figure of the final ABV would be nice.

Thanks.

(Oh and while I did this I also had a little taste of the original red ale, it was weak tasting and only 7 days into fermentation, but honestly it wasn't that bad! It didn't make me heave anyway, which is always good! Might dry hop or do a hop tea for that also, or just leave it and see how it turns out)

I'm afraid your maths be off. Ten times 450ml is 4.5 liters not gallons which it would have to be too be even close. You will get .004 points maybe if you're lucky.
Never mind though. Seriously though, stop throwing the larder at your beer. Let it be born.
You can call it A Date With Destiny red ale.

 

[Furious_Tea]

I'm afraid your maths be off. Ten times 450ml is 4.5 liters not gallons which it would have to be too be even close. You will get .004 points maybe if you're lucky.
Never mind though. Seriously though, stop throwing the larder at your beer. Let it be born.
You can call it A Date With Destiny red ale.

You misunderstand me, I do mean liters not gallons this time. I racked a small portion of the red ale into a second fermentation vessel, a 4.5L demijohn (carboy), from the main FV. So there is approx 4.05L of the red ale and 450ml of the new mix in there. Could you look at my numbers again please and see if I'm close?

Thanks

 

[divrack]

You misunderstand me, I do mean liters not gallons this time. I racked a small portion of the red ale into a second fermentation vessel, a 4.5L demijohn (carboy), from the main FV. So there is approx 4.05L of the red ale and 450ml of the new mix in there. Could you look at my numbers again please and see if I'm close?

Thanks

Ah right I get you. Should have read that better. Yea that should be about right then.
An easy way of doing the hard bits is to use brewing software like brewers friend online for free which has a pretty user friendly recipe builder and a bunch of tools, so in this case you could just make a recipe of 4.5 LTRs and add only your DME and see what it takes you to gravity wise, or use their dilution calculator, but I'm confident that your measurements and maths will be as close as to make no difference..
Enjoy.

 

[Furious_Tea]

Ah right I get you. Should have read that better. Yea that should be about right then.
An easy way of doing the hard bits is to use brewing software like brewers friend online for free which has a pretty user friendly recipe builder and a bunch of tools, so in this case you could just make a recipe of 4.5 LTRs and add only your DME and see what it takes you to gravity wise, or use their dilution calculator, but I'm confident that your measurements and maths will be as close as to make no difference..
Enjoy.

Great, thanks for the help, and suggestions.

[Edit - I just ran the fermentables through brewer's friend and it came out as 1.021, which was the exact amount I got from the hydrometer! As long as my other maths is sound, I should be in the ballpark]