I am ready to bottle my first batch of beer that is BB Imperial Nut Brown. I messed up a little and only fermented 4.5 gallons. The gravity has been 1.024 for over 5 days. I entered the recipe into Brewers Friend and it said fg should be 1.022 with 4.5 gallons. My question is can I add a half gallon with the priming sugar for bottling to bring it up to the 5 gallon batch that it is supposed to be?
First batch of beer.
- Thread starter BugEyedValiant
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Congratulations on your first batch 
Just my opinion, but I think that would dilute your beer a lot. You're talking about adding 10% water.
I don't think it would hurt the beer if you were using sterilized water - but I think it would definitely change the beer.
Personally, I'd take the 4.5 gallons this time, and adjust the brew day water volumes to account for more boil-off and/or equipment losses next time.
Just my opinion, but I think that would dilute your beer a lot. You're talking about adding 10% water.
I don't think it would hurt the beer if you were using sterilized water - but I think it would definitely change the beer.
Personally, I'd take the 4.5 gallons this time, and adjust the brew day water volumes to account for more boil-off and/or equipment losses next time.
Just bottle what you got. Don't further dillute your beer.
I'm with the other posters, don't dilute your beer... It's imperial is should be strong. With that said, have you tasted a sample? Do you like it, or is it too strong or rich tasting? If you like it leave it be.
cheers on making beer!
This should be moved to the don't do that thread
went ahead and bottled as is, will let you know how it turns out. Last hydrometer check before this one, alky was harsh, bottling sample had already mellowed. Hopefully it mellows that much more in the bottle.
MaryB
Well-Known Member
Give it time to age, I know you want to drink it but high gravity beers benefit from some time in the bottle. As an example I had a barleywine that was drinkable at 2 weeks, but at 6 months it was magnitudes of taste better as some of the harshness aged out and the flavors had time to blend.
couldn't wait any longer to try it. Two weeks in primary, one in a bottle. Kinda reminds me of a young whiskey, not ideal but definitely drinkable. If it gets better from here I am happy.
applescrap
Be the ball!
+1
It will get better....and better and better if you don't drink it all too soon. I'd expect this to peak out at about 2 years in the bottle. Can you make any of it last that long?
this will get better with time!.. try a bottle every couple weeks! nice job making beer!
I know you already bottled, but I'll throw out a thought for future reference. I think adding more water would depend on how you messed up. If you added all the fermentables and hops that were called for, but didn't add enough water, then you could add the water needed. You would end up with the originally intended beer. But if you had the beer as intended and lost a half gallon, then you shouldn't dilute what you have left.
(It's totally possible I misunderstood something in your post, because you got opposite answers from some experienced brewers. If so, my bad.)
It was supposed to be a 5 gallon batch and there was so much foam when I dumped it into the fermenting bucket that I couldn't see there was only 4.5 gallons actually in the bucket. That's the only reason I was going to add the extra water.
At that point, when you were going into the fermenter would have been the best time to do it, before yeast pitch. It's common, even when brewing all grain and missing your post boil volume- it's called "topping off."
In fact if the "shortcoming" in your post boil volume was because you boiled away too much (which happens all the time, especially when people are starting out and haven't "dialed in" their process and realize that maybe they need to dial back their stove or burner during the boil because they're boiling too much away in during that time) then your gravity at that point would have been raised by EXACTLY the amount of points that at that point topping off to the 5 gallons would have brought the gravity back down to what the recipe said it would be.
It would have all balanced out.
Post yeast pitch, and especially post fermentation, I recommend brewers just go with and enjoy what they got. There's a lot of risks to messing around after, including the risk of oxydizing or infecting the beer they have.
one of the reasons we get the yeast into the wort ASAP is to get the yeast working before there's any chance of wild nasties which are competing for all that sugar to make 5 gallons of vinegar for example, after fermentation you don't really have that safety net.... Same with agitating the beer and even adding oxygen right water- yeast need oxygen pre-fermentation... oxygen after fermentation makes your beer taste like liquid cardboard.
It's best to correct things before you add your yeast- fermentation is really good for correcting things, and it really is the "point of no return" where you want to mess around.
After it is best to let it ride.
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