Had a thought while brewing last weekend about missing the wort collection marks…I think my curiosity is related to collecting and boiling less than your target intentionally. Does anyone have any thoughts on this idea? I presume the gravity will be way off, the fermenter will have more head space, and perhaps the final ABV% will be off…is there necessarily anything wrong with this on occasion? I mean, why not bottle 30 “big” beers versus 50 “regular”? Thanks
If you follow the recipe in all other ways, your beer won’t be what it was “supposed” to be. The gravity of the boil effects your hop utilization, so bitterness will be off. Your yeast might act a little differently in a higher gravity wort (total gravity points should be the same, so pitching rate should be fine), so you might get some different flavors there.
Basically, you won’t get just get the same beer as you would have only with a higher alcohol content. You’ll get something similar, but different. It might even be better, but you won’t know until you try it.
That is what you did. For example, instead of making a APA of 5 gallons, 4.5ABV, 25IBU. The beer turns into an IPA of 4 gallons, 5.7ABV, 35IBU.
Same grain and hops. Different volume.
For some reason this does not seem like a terrible concept…especially with mash tun limitations…
