Steeped with too much water

[salbast]

This is my second brew. I ordered the Irish Stout from midwest. My first batch didn't involve any steeping at all. This batch obviously did. I think I got a little excited before steeping that I forgot that I was supposed to use only a gallon for steeping. Instead I used 3 gallons. Does anybody know how is this going to effect the taste of my brew?
Also, when I did my first brew I used a 6.5 gallon bucket with gallon markings. This time I used a glass carboy. So, again, got so anxious that when filling up the carboy which didn't have a 5 gallon marking, I only added 2 gallons of water to top off the 5 gallons. I forgot to account for evaporation. Is this going to make the alcohol stronger or just the taste? Is it too late to add some more water? My OG reading was 1.073. It was supposed tobe 1.046 (or something like that. Way off.
Any help with this would be greatly appreciate it. Thank you for your time in reading this.

 

[Yooper]

Steeping in more water will be fine. Don't worry about that.

As far as the amount of beer, I don't know if I have any good suggestions beyond marking the carboy with some masking tape for next time. The beer will definitely be stronger, if you have less than 5 gallons in there.

The OG reading is high, but it could also be because it's very hard to mix up top-off water and wort in a carboy. It's hard to get a good accurate reading, unless the water and wort and mixed like crazy.

When did you brew this? If you just brewed it, you could sanitize a primary bucket and pour the wort into it and measure it, add water if necessary, and pour it back. If it's been more than a day, though, just let it be.

 

[salbast]

Thanks for the quick reply. I finished it at 12:30AM on Sunday. I won't be able to touch it until 9PM tonight if anything. There's already a 4 inch krausen on it.
FYI, I did transfer the brew from the carboy to the kettle and then back to the carboy to aerate it. I don't know if that matters much

 

[Yooper]

Thanks for the quick reply. I finished it at 12:30AM on Sunday. I won't be able to touch it until 9PM tonight if anything. There's already a 4 inch krausen on it.

Then, don't move it now. Don't worry about it. When it's done, taste it when you take a sample. If it's "hot" and too strong, you can water it down a bit if you feel that you have to when you bottle it. I'd probably just let it go and have a slightly stronger beer this time.

 

[salbast]

Will this essentially turn it into an imperial stout?

 

[Yooper]

Will this essentially turn it into an imperial stout?

I don't know.

If you post the entire recipe, one of us can look at it and see if you've got an Imperial stout or just a stout with a little bigger ABV. Without knowing the volume, it'd be just a guess of course but we're pretty good at guessing!

 

[salbast]

Thanks. The ingredients for this recipe include:
6 lb. Dark liquid malt extract
4 oz. Chocolate Malt
4 oz. Caramel 10L
4 oz. Roasted Barley
4 oz. Flaked Barley specialty grain
1/2 oz. Nugget
1 oz. Willamette pellet hops
American Ale Activator Wyeast (another potential mistake which I just realized!)

 

[Yooper]

Well, to get an OG of 1.073, you'd have to only have 3 gallons of beer. That doesn't seem right, so I think your OG is incorrect. You must have added at least a couple of gallons of the wort to the fermenter, right? And added a couple of gallons of water? I'm guessing that with the boil off, you probably have 4 gallons or so in your fermenter.

If you have four gallons or so, you're right about at the guidelines for "foreign extra stout":

 

[salbast]

Interesting. I never tried one of those. That's exciting. I don't know where I went wrong with the OG reading. I even spun it to get the bubble off. That stinks since I won't be able to determine the ABV. Is there some other way to determine that?

 

[Yooper]

Interesting. I never tried one of those. That's exciting. I don't know where I went wrong with the OG reading. I even spun it to get the bubble off. That stinks since I won't be able to determine the ABV. Is there some other way to determine that?

Once you rack to your bottling bucket, you should have a much better idea of your volume, and you can then figure out the probable OG and the alcohol % from that.

Also, you'll want to reduce the amount of priming sugar you use. Keep that in mind. If you have 4 finished gallons, you'd use about an ounce less of priming sugar. (I generally use 4-5 ounces by weight for 5 gallons of beer). You can probably be very safe with 3.5 ounces (by weight) of priming sugar, even if you have 3.5-4 gallons of beer to bottle.

 

[salbast]

How would I be able to figure out the probable OG and alcohol percentage?

 

[Justibone]

How would I be able to figure out the probable OG and alcohol percentage?

You'll have to guess. There are software programs out there, that if you put in your ingredients and your volume they can predict an ABV for you. That's about your best shot at figuring it out at this point.

 

[salbast]

Great! Thank you both for all your help.