Help ASAP. Newbie question

[Oneoffcustom]

I just did the 45 min boil on a 1 gallon caribou slobber kit from northern brewer. At the end of boil and after cool down, my carboy was only a little over half full. I guess I lost a lot during boil. The instructions didnt mention any temp control or anything so I assume it all went up in vapor. My question is should I top off a bit with water, and will that thin my brew out?


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[solbes]

You could top it off now, and it may thin out the taste a little. If it's only half full now you will only get like 4-5 bottles from it, as you will lose another 1/8 of a gallon to yeast/sediment trub loss.

Since it's extract, your starting sugars are a given assuming you added all of the extract. I would add very clean top up water just short of where the carboy starts to change from vertical to slanted (to allow for the yeast krausen). This way you should be back up to 9-10 bottles from the batch.

In the future, you want to add enough water at the beginning of the boil to account for the boil off. That way it won't taste watered down at all.

 

[morticaixavier]

it won't taste watered down at all. most 5 gallon extract kits instruct a partial boil with top up water. It's an excellent opportunity to chill your wort down quickly and easily with cold water!

 

[Eagle_1]

For the 5 gallon extract recipes you top off with water to the 5 gallon mark. Looks like your gravity should be 1.052 - if it's high then you are probably supposed to add water to the gallon make.

 

[Oneoffcustom]

This was a 1 gallon kit. The gravity before top off was very high 1.08 ish.


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[morticaixavier]

sounds like you want to add ~.35 gallons of water to get you there.

 

[rskelhorn]

The kit called for 1.25 Gallons of water to be heated and you have only half a gallon left?

If the OG is 1.080 adding water to top it off won't hurt it.

 

[Oneoffcustom]

Lol. Thanks guys. I did add a bit of water just to get to under neck, not much at all. It was a bit over half gallon lol, and I was enjoying some blue moon so no "sampling" was done hahaha. Hope to soon.


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[HopHog87]

I just had this happen to me about a week ago...using Norther Brewer's Black IPA kit. I think the directions say 1.25 gallons to start the boil but I found out I lost about .5 gal during the 45 minute boil. I did a batch the next day of the stout and started with more like 1.75 and wound up with just a bit too much. So yea, I think, depending on kettle size, probably bumping the starting water up to something like 1.5 gallons for me would turn out pretty much perfect for 1 gallon.

I added some cool water to the batch as soon as it was in carboy and it is doing fine. I think the main thing is that you add the water (especially tap) before the fermentation begins really taking off. In fact, some tap water, I believe, can be a good thing because it is/will aerate the wort to help yeast take off. But I'm relatively new so don't quote me there.

 

[Oneoffcustom]

Man good to know it wasn't just me lol. I used all distilled water for boil and top off. Hope to go home and find my blow out tube full of foam.


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[troglodytes]

My first batch was the NB Caribou Slobber as well. I did the 5 gallon kit and had to top off with about 2 gallons of water (per the instructions).

One note on the Caribou Slobber, I followed instruction to a tee (primary time, secondary time, water volumes, etc) and the end result was definitely lacking (really thin and flavorless). I found it weird since so many people praise the kit online. I discovered that by not transferring to the secondary and letting it sit in the carboy an extra week really did wonders for this beer. It was hitting its stride after the seventh week (four in primary, three in bottles) I know you only made a 1 gallon batch, but if you find your results as mine were, I wouldn't blame the water addition but instead let it hang out in the primary a bit longer.