Less than 5 gal into fermentor, top it off?

[jeffceo24]

Made my first BIAB batch yesterday. I had a 10LB grain bill and 4.5 OZ of hops in the kettle. I started with 7.5 gallons of water but I ended up with (guestimating) 4.5-4.75 gallons in the fermentor. The hops and grain absorbed more water than anticipated. The recipe should be 1.050 but I got 1.060 OG. Obviously a little high, probably due to the reduced water volume. I plan on dry hopping with 2 OZ in a week or so.

Is it ever acceptable to top off the fermentor with some bottled or boiled water to bring up the volume or is that a big no no at this point? Thanks!

 

[histo320]

Made my first BIAB batch yesterday. I had a 10LB grain bill and 4.5 OZ of hops in the kettle. I started with 7.5 gallons of water but I ended up with (guestimating) 4.5-4.75 gallons in the fermentor. The hops and grain absorbed more water than anticipated. The recipe should be 1.050 but I got 1.060 OG. Obviously a little high, probably due to the reduced water volume. I plan on dry hopping with 2 OZ in a week or so.

Is it ever acceptable to top off the fermentor with some bottled or boiled water to bring up the volume or is that a big no no at this point? Thanks!

With the OG being higher it is ok to top off or you could just have a little bit of a stronger beer.

If you pitched yeast already make sure the water you top of with isn't freezing cold a d try to minimize splashing for oxegenation.

 

[MaxStout]

Don't top off. The headspace in that primary will be filled with CO2 before long and it won't be an issue. Enjoy a slightly stronger beer.

If you plan to rack to secondary you'll want to use one that doesn't allow much headspace, i.e., 5 gallon. But there are very few instances where you need to use a secondary, anyway.

 

[LittleRiver]

Yes, you can top off with water. I've done it once and the beer came out fine.

It's best if you boil the water first for 10min or so (to kill any bugs), then chill it to the same temp as your wort. At this early stage in fermentation oxygenation is actually desirable, so just dump it in quickly.

 

[JohnSand]

I've topped off too with good results.

 

[SW Ohio Keith]

If your gravity is off, it will change the sweet:bitter ratio I believe. Overshoot gravity should be on the sweet side, undershoot it and it should be more bitter. I could be wrong.

I’d top it off to try and hit the gravity so you will know the flavor that the recipe should produce.

 

[rburrelli]

Made my first BIAB batch yesterday. I had a 10LB grain bill and 4.5 OZ of hops in the kettle. I started with 7.5 gallons of water but I ended up with (guestimating) 4.5-4.75 gallons in the fermentor. The hops and grain absorbed more water than anticipated. The recipe should be 1.050 but I got 1.060 OG. Obviously a little high, probably due to the reduced water volume. I plan on dry hopping with 2 OZ in a week or so.

Is it ever acceptable to top off the fermentor with some bottled or boiled water to bring up the volume or is that a big no no at this point? Thanks!

Pretty large boil off rate there.... there is no need to have a vigorous boil as stated in the past. A gently rolling boil is sufficient to get the job done. You are correct about the water volume for that reason. You can add top off or not. Completely your choice.

 

[Alex4mula]

If it already started fermenting I would leave it alone. I wouldn’t risk it for an extra growler.

 

[Saunassa]

If my gravity is high and volume slightly under I will add water to the kettle when cooling to sanitize it a bit and help chill quicker. There are online calculators you can use to make sure you won't go low gravity when doing it.

 

[pvpeacock]

I regularly make 10 gallon batches with my 5 gallon set up by making a high gravity beer and adding top off water when I split the wort between two fermenters. I generally make 8 gallons of high gravity wort which barely fits in my brew kettle and then add around 1 1/2 gallons of top of water to each fermenter to get 5 1/2 gallons total in each fermenter.

 

[jeffceo24]

Thanks for all the tips guys, I appreciate it!

 

[El Nino]

Topping off is fine, I do it sometimes. Usually more commonly with session beers, but if I'm going for something stronger I don't.

 

[oakbarn]

We always adjust the volume to get the starting OG. We take a reading at the beginning of the boil and find what our end volume will need to be to reach perfect OG. We adjust hops to the Volume and end up with correct OG. We have conicals so over volume is not an issue.