Ooops...forgot to stir the wort!

[CanadianQuaffer]

Hey guys...I posted this earlier tonight but afterwards figured I probably posted it in the wrong forum, so my apologies for the double post...

I've been homebrewing for 3 years now, but have been doing full wort boils ever since my second batch, hence by screw-up detailed below...

I just brewed a 5 gallon batch of pale ale over the weekend, and it'd been so log since I'd done a concentrated wort boil, I forgot to stir the wort after I topped it up with 3 gallons of cold water to mix the contrentrated wort and water together...will that be a problem? I poured the water from about 1-2' above the bucket, so it went in fast and hard, and fermentation occured quickly and has now calmed down considerably (3 days later) so things *look* ok.

I'm thinking the action of pouring 3 gallons of water into the wort would have stirred things up well enough and the activity of the yeast doing its thing would have helped as well...but I'm still worrying, contrary to Charlie Papazian's sagely advice...

Think it'll be ok?

 

[codyjp]

I think the fermentation would do plenty of stirring.

 

[Demon]

The only issue might be in a gravity reading. I wouldn't worry a bit.

 

[CanadianQuaffer]

Thanks guys!

 

[mhc111]

I just did this today. I took a gravity reading and it read 1.02 OG. Confused the heck out of me until I realized I hadn't stirred it....

 

[ChshreCat]

+1. Not stirring will mess up your hydrometer reading, but the yeast will still be able to find where the sugar's are.

 

[JoeyChopps]

How much of a differences would a reading make pre shake and post shake?

 

[ChshreCat]

It can make a huge difference. That heavy, concentrated wort will sink to the bottom and the lighter stuff would float. Depending on where you got your sample from, it could be very high or very low.

 

[wolfman_48442]

How much of a differences would a reading make pre shake and post shake?

Possibly huge. I've seen 30 points of difference (read 1.040 - WTF?, stir - 1.070 - whew)