Petty question: I didn't thin my beer out, did I?

[ganu]

I'm guessing that all will be well, but when I began boiling my wort I lost a fair amount of water. Started with 2 gallons in the kettle but a good bit boiled off between my grain bag and my hops. I put on another pot of water and after it began to boil, added it to my wort, giving me probably 2 or 3 gallons. NOW I proceed on with my hops and the rest goes well.

Any chance that my beer will taste a little watered down? You have to add to make 5 gallons later anyway.

 

[Frodo]

You're right, if you add water later to get to 5 gallons then it doesn't "water it down" if you add it to the boil. The only thing you may have affected is how much hop utilization you got during the boil. Because you added water to the boil compared to what the recipe was geared for, your wort density was lower while it boiled. Hop utilization is higher with a lower density of wort (or that's the general concensus anyway; but there's been some new findings that the density of the wort may not affect hop utilization that much). So, you might have had more hop utilization than was intended by the recipe and your beer will be a little bit more bitter theoretically. Not a big deal though, the beer will end up fine. RDWHAHB.

 

[Yooper]

You took the grain bag out before you added the LME and brought it to a boil, didn't you? I assume you did, but I can't tell from your post.

Adding water to the boil is fine. Boiling as much liquid as you can manage tends to produce better tasting beer, with less darkening of the wort and less "extract-y" taste.

 

[ganu]

......
:rockin: