Missed my target final volume into carboy...

[Washington_Brewologist]

Hey guys! I just got done brewing a hoppy APA and seemed to have missed my target final volume of 5.5 by quite a bit. It looks like I have about 4.75 gallons in the fermenter. I believe I found the error in my planning but whats strange is I seemed to hit my target OG of 1.052 right on the button. My concern is that the amount of hops I added wasn't adjusted to compensate for the loss of volume. I haven't pitched my yeast yet and am wondering if sacrificing a few gravity points by adding some top up water would be a good idea to save the overall taste and quality of the beer...

I added tons of hops in my hop stand and I'm concerned I'm going to end up with a bitter bomb.

Thanks for your help!

 

[RPh_Guy]

I would not dilute it.
You can add water later if you think it's too bitter, but I doubt that will be the case.
And diluting won't change the bitter to gravity ratio, so I'm not even sure how much it would help.

 

[JohnSand]

If your gravity is on target, I would leave it alone. If you find it too bitter later, give it some time to mellow. But I don't think that will be necessary.

 

[Morrey]

Most of the time, I have found that trying to adjust or tinker around with volumes after the fact can be more counterproductive than beneficial. Like the other posters say, I'd simply let it ride and the hops will mellow naturally in a hurry if the bitterness seems harsh at first.

Going forward, it will be important to understand why your target gravity would have been off if you had actually hit the volume target. Learning what went wrong is always beneficial so you wont make that same mistake twice. I have mis-measured grains and other ingredients, so I'm always careful to double check.