Hi All,
just made my 2nd AG batch.
overshot the grain, thinking I wanted to make my target OG.
well, well, went better this time and now I have a t-can wheat at 1.062 for a titch less than 5 gallons!
I wanted 1.055…
should I at least top off to 5-5.25 gallons in primary?
or is that not done?
thanks
I’ve done it twice before and I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to. Off course it seems like it does increase the risk factor but right now I have a chocolate oatmeal stout on tap that I overshot by about five points and I dumped in some water to bring it down to where I want to get it. It turned out great. If you do go ahead with it just make sure to mix it in there good so you get an accurate reading.
Sure it is, Just boil and cool the amount of water needed. As a matter of fact I just did this to a simcoe rye pale ale. I was shooting for 1.050 and hit 1.056 due to using a different base grain and rye than used before this batch. So I simply boiled and cooled a half gallon of distilled water to avoid any chlorination concerns and brought mg SG back to 1.050 during primary. Some would say distilled is pure enough to use as is but something could come along for the ride in the bottling process or other that I dont trust. I dont put all the effort into a brew-day to possibly infect it with diluting water that takes a few moments to boil and cool to assure purity.
Many times I have lumped it if I overshot SG but found I would rather have a pale closer to 5% than 6% just for drink ability sake with closer to 35-40 IBU. And save the 6-7.5% aspect for IPA’s in the 50-70 IBU range.
It is well within reason to lower that wheat beers SG slightly to achieve a better mouth feel and final ABV%
Promash and other tools have dilution calcuators that will estimate the SG for you no real need to mix well or test it is pretty reliable calculation. Just assume the starting SG for the dilution. If you dont have promash/beersmith etc… you can download for free and use it for limited amount of recipes before you need to buy an unlock code.
Why would you want to dilute it?
Just enjoy a bigger beer.
thanks everyone!
I put in some boiled, cooled, dechlor water (that I had on hand) and now all is good.
1/2 gallon brought it to about 1.055, perfect for this wheat beer.
NB’s kit for this has OG 1.045, but I like it a little higher, but not 1.062!
it’s for a party end of May, need a nice easy drinking beer.
