Added too much water!

[Themats]

Brewed a Trappist Noble Ale, but didn't pay attention, and filled the fermenting bucket with at least a gallon or more of extra water. I filled to the line inside the bucket instead of looking at the 5 gallon mark on the outside. So here are my gravity readings and what the recipe said they should be:

Original: 1.052 Specific Gravity 1.052
Final: 1.002 Specific Gravity 1.002
Alcohol By Weight: 5.4 %
Alcohol By Volume: 6.7 %

Here are the ones from the directions:

SG: 1.049-1.053
FG: 1.010-1.012

I've tasted it, and it's pretty watery tasting. Anything I can do to salvage this? What about adding lemonade mix in the secondary or just prior to bottling and calling it a shandy?

Thanks in advance,

Mike Murray

 

[Double_D]

If i'm reading this right the directions say you should be .049-.053 and you started at .052. I don't see the problem. If you hit the proper gravity you couldn't have added too much water.

 

[beeber]

Don't add lemonaide. Bottle it as is and see how you like it. You could always add lemonaide afterwards if that's what you want.

 

[wherestheyeast]

Was this an extract kit?

The way I understand is that IF you hit your target volume correctly your SG will be what is indicated by the directions (of course hydrometers are temperature dependent & are difficult to get a super-precise reading).

If this was an extract kit, and you did indeed over fill by a gallon you could be as much as 5 - 10 points lower than the recipe's calculation.

If you hit your SG dead on, with extra water, you might be mis-reading your hydrometer....

 

[Double_D]

Yeah, I guess I was assuming he was accurate with his readings.

 

[Themats]

Extract kit from Midwest. Wort was below 80 degrees when I took the sample. I can't remember if I took the sample before adding the water or not. I know that I added at least 8-10 pint glasses full of water into the fermenting bucket. Looking at the same mark on the bottling bucket, I added an extra gallon. Gravity figures aside, it tastes pretty watery.

 

[PistolaPete]

Not much you can do about it now except wait. I've heard that when bottling, priming with DME instead of corn sugar will add a little more body which may help some, but I've only ever used corn sugar so I'm not sure if that will help or not...