Too little water in wort

[onefour]

First brew messed up pretty bad. Recipe called for 3 1/2 gallons of water in the kettle, but with my amazing math skills I only put in 2.25 gallons. Did everything else right in the brewing process and filled up the fermenter to 5 gallons with distilled water, then I realized my big mistake. Any chance this beer turns out well or should I just scrap it and try again? Thanks

 

[Velnerj]

I assume it's an extract brew. As long as you used all the ingredients, you'll be fine. Top up water in the fermenter ain't going to make a big difference if it's 2 gallons or 3 gallons it'll all mix to an equalibrium and sort itself out.

Realx. Don't worry. Have a homebrew.

 

[myndflyte]

If it's extract, how much water you use in the kettle doesn't really matter. There may be slight differences in hop utilization but that's not a big deal. In the end, it ends up at 5 gallons and that's all that really matters. So no reason to dump it.

 

[rsquared]

I'll second what myndflyte said. Hop utilization goes down as gravity goes up, so because you had a denser (less diluted) boil, your bitterness will be a bit lower than expected. But that's the only real noticeable difference that I would expect.

P.S. I accidentally did the opposite once. My girlfriend picked up an Irish Red extract kit for her second ever brew. Me being a long way into all grain forgot that we shouldn't just do a full volume boil just because I had a big enough pot to fit it all... We ended up with closer to a Red IPA (but with a bit too much maltiness still) than an Irish Red.

 

[onefour]

Thanks everyone!