Short 1.040 batch

[montee11]

I have had fairly good luck home-brewing some years ago, decided to make a Beire de Guard with WLP 072. Also my first all grain work. Found a 10 gal cooler/mush tun on ebay,etc,etc.
To get to the point,I hit my boil OG at 1.070.was supposed to be 5.25 gal. somewhere I messed up on my water volume, ending up with only 2.5 gal at 1.040 in the primary. I hit my boil OG at 1.070. I have this after 5 days when yeast slowed way down. I don't know where the volume problem came from, but the next go round will be a lot closer inspected.
What now? Do I add 2.5 gal H20, will adding H20 bring the gravity down to where it should be (1.015)?
I did add half again as much water to the sample I had for gravity , it came right in proper range at 1.015.
So do I add water and let things progress for 2 weeks, until it is time prime and bottle?

Thanks in advance for any and all replies.

 

[kh54s10]

You are really mixing up your gravities. Your preboil gravity will be smaller than your OG and your final gravity will be the lowest.

So you should have had about 7 gallons into the boil kettle at 1.040 for your OG of 1.070 and about 5 gallons into the fermenter. Your final gravity after fermentation would be in the 1.013 range.

Did you collect 5.25 gallons to preboil? If so you did not have enough. If that 5.25 gallons was 1.070 you could not have boiled and ended up with 1.040. It would be a lot higher - something above 1.090.

Without some clarification (correction of your amounts and gravities) advice on what to do is a stab in the dark.

 

[feinbera]

A couple other questions:

• What were you using to measure your gravity, a hydrometer? A refractometer?
• What temperature were the samples? Did you temperature-correct your readings?
• How much wort did you have going into the kettle before your boil? How much after your were done boiling?
• Did you add any more to "top off" on your way to the fermenter, or do anything else to the wort, before you pulled and measured your post-boil sample?

As kh54s10 said, those gravities look weird – boiling off water should increase the sugar concentration (same amount of sugar in less water), so, the post-boil gravity should be higher, not lower.

 

[montee11]

Sorry for the confusion. I thought I read 1.070 post boil. But now that doesn't make sense. I had what I thought was 7 gal going in to the boil. My brewpot happens to be just at 13 in dia. which makes for 1gal per in. of depth. 90 min boil with gal/hr loss. So I must has started with a lot less. Number stamps coming out for marking now.
I chilled with a immersion copper coil. Into the fermenter bucket with yeast.
I ended up with 2.5 gal at 1.040 now. That is what I racked to second ferment. Can I add 2.5 gal to the 1.040, to get my anticipated volume of 5 gal. and be OK? Save the batch? That water addition would also bring the gravity down to 1.015.

I also think a logbook of some sort would help remember details, that elude me right now.

Thanks