Too Much Water

[mbaker33]

Hey Guys,

I made an Octoberfest last night and somehow managed to put an extra gallon of water into the pot and ended up with 6 gallons at the end instead of the normal 5.25 that I like to have. So the ABV is going to be a bit lower, is there any way to correct this after it is already in primary? My OG is 1.043 and I am using the European Ale Yeast.

Thanks,

Mark

 

[JMSetzler]

There is no way to correct it at this point. Should still be good beer though The color might be a little lighter than expected as well.

 

[IXVolt]

You could possibly freeze distillation/fracturing the beer and remove the formed ice. But you'd have to repitch the yeast as well.

I would just run with it the way it is. Who knows, it may turn out great.

 

[cellardoor]

You could possibly cook up a quick concentrated solution of like a lb or 2 of dme to increase the gravity to what you desire. It would probably change the taste a bit and bitterness. I don't think it would make the beer worse at this point.

 

[danielinva]

You could possibly cook up a quick concentrated solution of like a lb or 2 of dme to increase the gravity to what you desire. It would probably change the taste a bit and bitterness. I don't think it would make the beer worse at this point.

I was thinking the same thing, but if he's already at 6 gallons it would have to be seriously concentrated at a low volume to give him enough head space for his fermentation.

 

[ArcaneXor]

You could have just boiled longer to drive off more of the extra water. But that's obviously not a choice now.

You could:

1.) Brew another batch designed to compensate for the shortcomings of the first one and blend the two
2.) Add additional malt extract to the fermenter, as has been stated. If you don't have any fermenter space left, just pour some of the dilute beer out before adding the concentrated, additional wort.

 

[david_42]

Authentic Oktoberfests can run as low as 2% ABV, so I'd say leave it alone. You can always drink it in liter mugs, rather than pints.

 

[mbaker33]

Thanks guys for all of the replies. I thought about putting some LME or DME in, but wasn't sure how it would work out. As it is, it sill likely be a 3.5% to 3.9% ABV, not horrible, but definitly not what I was hoping for.

In hind sight, I was trying to think of ways to prevent this from happening in the future and I thought about either A) marking the pot with gal/qt marks, or B) marking some sort of stick with the same, perhaps my spoon.

I wasn't sure about putting magic marker on something that will be in constant contact with the wert, any ideas?

 

[shek]

Thanks guys for all of the replies. I thought about putting some LME or DME in, but wasn't sure how it would work out. As it is, it sill likely be a 3.5% to 3.9% ABV, not horrible, but definitly not what I was hoping for.

In hind sight, I was trying to think of ways to prevent this from happening in the future and I thought about either A) marking the pot with gal/qt marks, or B) marking some sort of stick with the same, perhaps my spoon.

I wasn't sure about putting magic marker on something that will be in constant contact with the wert, any ideas?

I actually check my kettle with a ruler, the kettle is 7.5G and every inch below the rim to the surface of the wort is about a half gallon...I'm thinking of putting notches on the side of my big stainless brew spoon every half inch so that I can also use it as a ruler.