should i add more water?

[shadygrove96]

did a quick search through some threads and couldnt find an answer to this so here goes...

i finished brewing a 5ga. partial mash late monday night. I used about 2 ga. of water for the mash. I then used just over 1 ga. of water to sparge the grains, bringing my boil to just over 3 ga.

after all the cooking and cooling i added the wort to 2 ga. of water in my primary fermentor. when all was at the right temp i pitched my yeast...without really thinking too much about it and called it a night.

i woke up tuesday morning and took a look at my primary (6.5ga glass carboy) and realized that i must have lost more water than i thought when boiling because it seems as though i am about .5 ga to 1ga. short.

so after way too much info, here is my question...its now wed. morning. i have no signs of vigerous fermentation yet (doesnt worry me yet) but i was wondering if i should add more water to bring the volume to 5 ga? should i just let it ride and not open up my primary? i plan on transfering it to a secondary fermentor once initial fermentation is complete, should i add more water at that time? should i do nothing? am i freaking out for no reason?

thanks,

 

[Yooper]

What's the OG? If your beer has too high of an OG, then I'd recommend adding water to get to your desired OG for the recipe.

I wouldn't want to guess at .5 to 1 gallon of an addition. You may be way off on your estimate, and add to much water and water down your beer. The only way I'd add any water is if I missed my OG and the beer would be out of balance.

 

[TheJadedDog]

Did you take a hydrometer reading? The only real affect of have a lower total volume is that your starting gravity will be higher, this may lead to a higher ABV in the end. Otherwise the only downside is less beer to drink when it's done. Personally, I'd just leave well enough alone at this point.

 

[luckylindy345]

You can leave it at 4.5 gallons if you want. That's fine. You could add the extra half gallon if you want but it's really not necessary in my (limited) experience and may not be worth the risk...Less to bottle that way, to