Too much water? What now?

[Beau815]

ok so for my very first full boil everyone says that the 30 quart pot is the smallest and its to the brim so watch out.... anyways i filled it to an ich from brim (now i know i should of filled my fermenting bucket to about 6 gallons and tossed it in the kettle, i would have had alot more room) anyways its all extract this kit and i added a pound of corn sugar thank god or it would be very weak. It was 1.040 at about 70 degree and i realized its because i have about 6.3 gallons instead of 5... so what do you pros think? This is a cream ale... brewed to show my boring BMC drinkers some of the ropes of brewing. It all went great except my measuring of water. I hope this is drinkable. I slacked bad this time... i poured the wort into the fermenter hard to aerate. it was VERY foamy. Is that bad? or did it give the yeast oxygen? Ok, so i pitched the yeast at 68 degrees and its not been 24 hours but no activity yet.... i know they say wait 24-72 hours but my other 7 batches all were bubbling the next day. I told you of all the things i think i messed up... let me know what ya think. I hope this isnt watery and undrinkable, and hope it bubbles soon. I have a blow off tube on it because only have an inch or so of space in the bucket.

 

[Laughing_Gnome_Invisible]

1.040 will give you a decent low grav beer, fine for a cream ale although it will be a bit drier with that smallish amount of corn sugar. You did well with the aeration, yeasties like the oxygen.

 

[david_42]

Nothing you did is fatal. I'd say you'll have a large amount of tasty small beer sometime soon.

 

[Beau815]

Ok good, cuz it was getting cold out and everyone was losing interest and were about to go inside so i was like ok... ill aerate by dumping it in hard..then i thought hey wait i think this is bad to do... i heard of shaking the fermenter so i figured it may be similar. Maybe its only after fermentation where its obviously bad to do and you siphon slowly... ok so i feel a bit better. Im kinda upset at myself that 2 gallons didnt evaporate leaving me 5 perfect gallons... only one gallon went so now ill be able to judge better next time. its a learning experience i guess... first full boil, first use of turkey fryer, first use of immersion chiller... so im counting the extra water as not too bad of a mess up... as long as them yeasties start up i should be happy.

 

[Laughing_Gnome_Invisible]

It's a lose win situation. You get a slightly weaker beer (lose) But you get more of it! (Win)

Just relax.

 

[Beau815]

Would of been alot weaker if i didnt add the corn sugar... it was supposed to be 1.040-1.050 and with the pound of corn sugar its exactly the low end 1.040. Sadly the purpose beyond father son bonding with my bored retired dad, was that he always drinks bud light but said he would drink anything no matter the taste as long as he gets a decent buzz. He says sometimes he can drink 5-6 buds and not get a buzz. So i wanted to get a similar beer and be able to have like a 7-8% so i really fell short with the abv by adding that water... ok ill relax and update tomorrow if its bubbling or not. However, it is only 64 in my apt.... may be slow to start.

 

[Laughing_Gnome_Invisible]

Would of been alot weaker if i didnt add the corn sugar... it was supposed to be 1.040-1.050 and with the pound of corn sugar its exactly the low end 1.040. Sadly the purpose beyond father son bonding with my bored retired dad, was that he always drinks bud light but said he would drink anything no matter the taste as long as he gets a decent buzz. He says sometimes he can drink 5-6 buds and not get a buzz. So i wanted to get a similar beer and be able to have like a 7-8% so i really fell short with the abv by adding that water... ok ill relax and update tomorrow if its bubbling or not. However, it is only 64 in my apt.... may be slow to start.

Put the cream ale into a meat injector and shoot it straight into a convenient vein. he will love you for it. Bonding complete.

 

[arover]

Wow...I am really tripping balls right now. I JUST posted friday night, saying I boiled about 1.5 gallons too much, of a CREAM ALE! no less (the post should be down there somewhere). I was 1 gal short with my first batch...so I guess I went a little over with this one, lol. The kit (mesh-extract) predicted a 1.050 starting gravity, I got 1.053. How does that even work? Shouldnt it have been LOWER if it was watered down?

Anyways- don't worry about it. Within 12 hours I was bubbling like crazy, I set up a blowoff because I'm only about 2 inches from the top now...but the foam hasn't really gone crazy. What I'M wondering now is what I'm going to do with that extra beer. There's enough priming sugar for 5 gallons...I'm thinking of leaving the remainder in the primary after I transfer to secondary, then trying a different priming sugar and bottling my extra stuff straight from primary.

 

[Laughing_Gnome_Invisible]

Wow...I am really tripping balls right now. I JUST posted friday night, saying I boiled about 1.5 gallons too much, of a CREAM ALE! no less (the post should be down there somewhere). The kit predicted a 1.050 starting gravity, I got 1.053. How does that even work? Shouldnt it have been LOWER if it was watered down?

Anyways- don't worry about it. Within 12 hours I was bubbling like crazy, I set up a blowoff because I'm only about 2 inches from the top now...but the foam hasn't really gone crazy. What I'M wondering now is what I'm going to do with that extra beer. There's enough priming sugar for 5 gallons...I'm thinking of leaving the remainder in the primary after I transfer to secondary, then trying a different priming sugar and bottling my extra stuff straight from primary.

What was the temp when you took the hydro reading? For most hydrometers it needed to be 60F.

 

[arover]

Oh, that's right. The temp was more like 75-78 now that I think about it. Well ****, that's gonna be some watered down beer. That's more like 1.040, isn't it?

 

[Beau815]

haha thats funny, but at least yours was 1.053!!! thats decent. No wonder why its bubblin'. Its been like 19-20 hours for mine and no bubbling yet. I put the heat up, and the fermenter is wearing my winter jacket lol. ill have to find your thread. Hmm, thats true too about the priming sugar... i have the 5oz for 5 gallons and i have extra priming sugar so ill lower it to 5 gallons when its time to bottle and then the extra ill bottle by putting the teaspoon of corn sugar in each bottle... and if anyone's reading along (gnome)... what does everyone mean by "dry" I understand that like white wine is drier than red... kinda confused... ill google it quick also.

 

[arover]

Well, as you just probably saw above, my gravity is much lower...forgot about the temperature adjustment. DONT add the sugar by the bottle, I hear that's a nono. What I'd honestly do is your first 5 gallons in the bottling bucket, mix in your priming sugar solution, bottle. Then take out the measured remainder of beer, and make another solution ACCORDINGLY with a calculated, prices amount of sugar, and bottle that.

 

[Laughing_Gnome_Invisible]

1.053 at 78F = 1.055!

You must have done something strange somewhere else.

 

[Beau815]

hahaha! wow looks like its better than you thought arover!

 

[arover]

Hold on a second, I was reading the appendix of Palmer, and the delta G is like .020 for 78F. You sure about that? Wouldn't it be 1.055 - .020?

 

[Laughing_Gnome_Invisible]

Beau, you could still end up with about 3.9% ABV (Thanks Beersmith) That is still perfectly fine. I brew between 3.6 to 5 as my preferred range. Taste and quality is not necessarily related to ABV.

 

[Lefty]

One of my homebrews I added too much water. I went on with the process and bottled and everything turned out fine. It was just...watery. No real surprise there. I hated it and wanted to through it out, but all of my Budmillercoors-type friends loved it...go figure.

 

[arover]

Oh, the delta G is .002, not .02. I don't know, maybe I REALLY read it wrong, but I couldn't believe my eyes, it was giving me a steady 1.050-1.054 reading, even after cooling down. I even aerated the bucket some more to make sure I wasn't just getting a highly concentrated sample lol. What kind of beer was it, lefty? And how much did you go over by?

 

[Laughing_Gnome_Invisible]

Anyways. A cream ale at 3.9% is fine. No worries.

 

[Beau815]

OK thanks gnome and all. Hopefully I'll have some bubbles by tomorrow.