2nd BIAB batch; higher pre-boil volume - what should I have done?

[mtnagel]

So I did my second BIAB batch this weekend and I have a newbie question. While I was draining my bag, I was measuring the volume. I stopped when I reached my pre-boil volume. I put my bag in a bucket while I was measuring my SG. My actual SG matched my expected pre-boil SG. When I lifted the bag up, there was least 1/4-1/2 gal extra wort. What should I have done at this point?

1) Toss the extra
2) Put it my pot and boil until I reached my pre-boil volume and then continued with boil (how would this have affected my beer?)
3) Something else

 

[geneticbiscuit]

I'd have to go with 4) Depends. Depends on what the SG of the extra was, depends on how much extra your fermenter can hold, depends on if you have extra hops laying around.

If the SG was low (<1.015, or even 1.02), I'd probably toss it, if the SG was decent and I had capacity and hops, I'd probably just proceed with the normal boil and add 5-10% extra at each hop addition, or if the SG was decent but I didn't have extra hops and/or fermenting capacity then I may boil for an extra 10-15 minutes and start the hop additions with 60 left.

Boiling for a bit more time won't do much to the beer, other than maybe bump the color up a bit - there are plenty of brews that use 90 minute or more boils for various reasons.

 

[mtnagel]

Thanks for your thoughts. I didn't measure the SG of the extra, so I have no idea what it was. I only buy the hops I need, so I never have more to adjust on the fly.

What I ended up doing, because I didn't notice the extra until had already started the boil and put in my first hops, was added some of it to the boil. I assume it didn't do anything but I'm glad I did because my cooling took a lot longer than normal and I ended up with 1/4 gallon less than planned at the end.

 

[RM-MN]

Since you did a BIAB batch, unless you added water to that bag of grains after the mash was over, the wort you left behind had the same gravity as the wort you boiled. I always add this back to the boil pot because it has the same sugars per unit volume as what you are boiling down. If you dumped it out, you dumped out potential beer.