To much water added to primary

[Nmillard]

Hi just racked my first beer to the secondary fermenter but after the boil I took the og and it was at 1.077 with temp correction much higher than what the recipe called for but I added a half pound more DME I thought that I needed more water well added 1 gallon more which probably brought it to 6 gallons well it dropped my og to 1.033 (1.013 when i racked to secondary) which now I have a watery low alcohol beer oh well learn from my mistakes but what should I have done when I realized I added to much water? Before pitching yeast(which I didn't start properly)?

 

[nealizm]

My fairly noobish thoughts would be take some liquid out disolve dme in boiling water and get the og where it needs to be,1/2 LB at a time?Maby transfer the extra to a 1-2 gallon fermenter and play with it.

 

[KevinW]

First off don't be so hard on yourself! You have beer so drink it while planning your next brew that will not have the same issues!

Sounds like you may have taken your gravity without thoroughly mixing the wort! I am assuming you do extract and also assuming you topped off your wort to make 5 gallons!

If so then when you top off your wort you need to mix very well since the wort and the water will have such different gravities!

If you are doing extract then it is actually very easy to calculate your gravity as long as you know how much water you have to how much extract so in the future you really only need to take a final gravity for ABV!

Liquid Malt Extract gives about .007 gravity per pound per 5 gallons!
Dry Malt Extract gives about .009 gravity per pound per 5 gallons!

6lbs LME in 5gal = ~1.042 OG!

Just estimates but you get the point!

 

[chickypad]

Sounds like you may have taken your gravity without thoroughly mixing the wort!

^This. If you had 1.077 at 5 gallons and added 1 gallon it would give you 1.064. It's really hard to get a good measurement after topping off.

 

[Nmillard]

thanks guys I feel more confident my first beer will turn out great and where can i find a calculator for those figures you guys were using

 

[rifraf]

thanks guys I feel more confident my first beer will turn out great and where can i find a calculator for those figures you guys were using

Beersmith is a great program, and there are various free websites like www.beertools.com or www.hopville.com.

Each brew is a new lesson, and remember that as long as you sanitized well, the worst case scenario is that you make beer!