Not enough water for wort...

[ericerler]

I bought the Metedeconk Summer Brew kit from the Brewer's Apprentice. It makes 5 gallons so it calls for 2.5 gallons to steep the grains and boil the wort. After 30 minutes of steeping the grains, you're supposed to raise the heat to a boil, add the extracts, wait for it to return to a boil, add the bittering hops, boil for 45 minutes, add the finishing hops, and boil another 15 minutes.

So I screwed up twice and am wondering what effect these screwups will have on my beer:

1. Rather than waiting for the wort to boil, I added the extracts right after removing the grain bag. I then waited for it boil before adding the bittering hops.

2. After adding the bittering hops, my wort was boiling for 20 minutes when I suddenly realized I had only put 1.5 gallons of water in, instead of 2.5 gallons. Upon realizing the mistake, I added the additional gallon, returned the wort to a boil (about a 30 minute delay before it returned to a boil) and then continued the boil for the remaining 25 minutes (there were 25 minutes remaining in the boil since I had already boiled for 20 minutes before realizing my mistake). I then carried on by adding the finishing hops and boiling the final 15 minutes.

So if anyone has any idea what kind of effect this will have on my beer, I'd appreciate the feedback. Also, did I do the right thing by adding water mid boil, then waiting for it to return to a boil before continuing to time the boil?

Thanks!

 

[davekippen]

1) No problem. I do that all the time. Although, these days, I only add a little after steeping, and add the rest at flame out. Search late extract addition for more deets!
2) No problem. The recommendation is to do a "full" boil anytime you can, but what you did will not result in anything bad. The closer to "full", the better the results. ie, if you are making 5 gal batches, boil as much as you can. I do 5 gal batches, but only boil 4 because my pot is not quite big enough to handle the hot break - 5 gallons of water will boil over for sure!

Regardless, you made beer! Will it be the best beer you ever had? Who knows. Maybe. But you learned something and your next beer will be better!

Congrats!

 

[FATC1TY]

Your 1st one wasn't a mistake. If it's a LME, it's better to add when the flame is out, and stirring so you don't burn it. I'll sometimes add a bit of my extract, like some of the DME, and then do the rest at flame out to keep the color light, and the taste is better.

As for the boil on the hops.. Won't change a ton, but if you added hops at 60, and stopped the boil, then you might not have the right IBU's for the beer, and it could be slightly unbalanced. Probably not a huge issue however for the beer you did.