Late Water Addition Question

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Hey all,

I'm brewing a 6.5% saison. I was short on my volume by about a half gallon going into the fermentor. It's been in fermentation for a week. Can I still add a half gallon of filtered water to get it up to 5 gal or is it too late?

Thanks
 
I used to do that all of the time. I never got burned. Your results may vary. You might consider boiling the water and letting it chill. I never had the patience to do that.
 
you should check the gravity to see if its too much evaporation or something else
 
This has happened to me twice, I have a heavy duty burner and it takes near constant monitoring for the first 10 minutes to dial in the boil.

The first time I added tap water (what I presumed to be mostly sterile) to the fermenting wort (I wanted to make sure that the yeast were active and overpower any spoilage organisms), but all I got was 6 gallons of undrinkable beer due to chlorophenols.

The second time I added water that I boiled for 15 minutes and then chilled. No issues and the beer is quite delicious.
 
you can take not all "but most tap water" and add crushed campden tablets and it will get rid of any chemical flavor
 
Until I get my water volumes all down pat, I have been adding water via bottled spring water, sprayed with StarSan sanitizer. So far, none of my beers have been effected. At least to a point that I can tell.
 
Hey all,

I'm brewing a 6.5% saison. I was short on my volume by about a half gallon going into the fermentor. It's been in fermentation for a week. Can I still add a half gallon of filtered water to get it up to 5 gal or is it too late?

Thanks

You're much better off to check your gravity and top up before fermentation starts. If your gravity is high and your volume is low, change your boiloff or start with a bigger sparge. If your gravity is right but your volume is low, find a way to increase your efficiency or add more to the grain bill for next time and just settle for a smaller amount of the beer you have in the fermenter.
 
Boil it, cool it, chuck it in. As long as it's sanitary, your only risk is over-diluting the beer.
 
Thanks everybody. I did check the gravity and it was still at 1.025 and needs to come down a ways yet. If anyone is curious this is the Apex Predator by Off Color recipe. Strongly recommended. It's a juice bomb of a saison. It tastes great as is but it's gunna be magic after it fully attenuates.
 

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