OG is too high from loss of water in boil

[Doliss]

I finished brewing a 1 gallon recipe and I boiled off a bit more water than I expected to so the volume of my wort was a bit less than a gallon. The OG reading i took when put into the primary was 1.172. My question is when i tranfer the wort into a secondary in a couple days can I add a little water to thin out the wort slightly to get it back to a gallon volume and in the process lower the specific gravity?

Any thoughts on this?

 

[unionrdr]

You should've went ahead & done it when you put it in the fermenter.

 

[CarboyBoy]

My vote is to leave it as is:

1. Even if you're a full quart short of a gallon, adding another quart of water will only bring you down to 1.129.

2. Seems to me that adding top off water after primary fermentation/attenuation is finished won't improve what you already have. At best, you'll get another bottle; at worst, there's a remote chance of infection. Topping off before pitching would've been the best opportunity, and even then, I'd've let it ride anyway unless it were really short of the target.

 

[Doliss]

I would imagine that it's at most a pint or so short, probably less though. Guess I was just surpirsed by the high OG, I was expecting something lower. Should have been around 1.064. Was planning on tranferring to a secondary in few days but the fermentation seems to have slowed way down. Guess is that true test of patience

 

[unionrdr]

What happened was no different than a partial boil. So topping it off to recipe volume would've been fine. But I do prefer to do it before pitching.

 

[chickypad]

Just out of curiosity was this a barleywine or something equivalent? Just wondering if your measurement is accurate. That sounds like an awfully big beer even if you were a little short on volume.

Edit: okay I was posting simultaneously. I think your measurement had to be off. Can you post your recipe and process?

 

[Doliss]

Extrace recipe of the White house honey ale

 

[chickypad]

Your measurement is definitely off. Either you didn't mix well, hyrdrometer is not calibrated, reading it wrong, something. Unless you added like 2 1/2 times the extract by mistake there is no possible way you were at 1.172.

 

[Doliss]

I used the northern brewer kit
1.25 gal water
10 mins of steeping
bring to boil, at boil add 1.5 lbs of gold malt extract and 7g of kent goldings and boil for 45 mins
30 mins into boil add 7g fuggle hops
remove from boil, add 2oz honey
I filtered the trub out while transferring to primary
Added yeast and sealed everything up
Temp of wort was right at 72 when i closed up, it's been right around 68-70 in my basement and had active bubbles till this morning (roughly 66 hours from brewing)

 

[Doliss]

And to measure I pulled some wort out with a baster and put it in a test tube, read the measurement just below the meniscus (been in bio and chem lab enough to know my way around this step)

 

[Doliss]

Hydrometer is calibrated, just verified it (since i hadn't done that prior to putting it in the wort)

 

[chickypad]

The honey and LME give you 58 gravity points. They don't list the steeping grains but if the expected OG was 1.064 couldn't have been more than 1/2 lb or so. If you extrapolate from their 5 gallon recipe it would be .25 lb. But let's say you got the whole 6 pts they estimated from the grains. You would have had to been left with 1.5 qts ending volume to hit the gravity you are measuring. If you're sure of your reading and calibration sounds like a mixing issue.

 

[Doliss]

I guess it's possible that I got more of the trub sediment than I should have in my sample. Guess i'll let it settle a bit and make sure to pull from the top next time. Thanks for the tips

 

[gcdowd]

I didn't even know hydrometers went that high. Mine only goes to 1.17. Are you sure the hydrometer wasn't sitting at the bottom of the testing vessel?