So how badly did I screw this up?

I got the honey ale kit for one gallon and it arrived today and I brewed it today except I misread the instructions.

Instead of boiling for 30 minutes to the first hop addition, I boiled for 45 minutes and realized too late what I had done.

And once the wort was in the carboy I had maybe 3/4s a gallon instead of a gallon. So not only do I have less product, I have more headspace.

Should I just buy the kit again and try again at a later date? Or will this be fine?

it will be fine. you’ve balanced the slightly more bitter beer with a more concentrated malt/ wort. too bad you have less beer than expected but order another kit and try again

You can add water for the volume. As far as the hops it may be a tad less bitter but won’t ruin the beer

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Exactly. The recipe is designed to be a specific OG at 1gal given you used all the extract. So your current wort should be a higher OG since you concentrated it by boiling of an additional quart. Simply add sanitary water and your OG will be correct.

But it’s probably too late now that it’s in the carboy with yeast pitched and everything?

Let it fermemt out then boil the amount of water you need to top up add the calculated amount of priming sugar to that let it cool then rack your beer yo it and bottle. It will be fine if you do it

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Add some distilled water now or at any time. It will work out fine.

Some things I do so I don’t screw up even after 25 years of brewing, Take notes and if you are doing a kit highlight stuff to do and put notes in the margin of the instructions. Get a kitchen timer or set alarms in your phone for boil times, hop additions or whatever event. It helps to line up everything you use on a table or counter top in order. I put hop additions in plastic cups and mark the times on them.

Even with all that on occasion I will goof. Most of the time it can be fixed and come out good beer.

Would I still be safe to use the fizzdrops the kit came with?

Yes but you need to make sure it fully ferments. A hydrometer is the tool for that. But with only 3/4 of a gallon you will lose too much testing IMO. Because you have to take a sample, wait 3 days and take another sample. You cannot put your sample back in the fermenter however because putting it back is a sure fire way to contaminate or oxidate your beer. Most likely after 4 weeks in the fermenter it will be complete.

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I think the best way to test a 1 gallon batch is with a refractometer. Its not that accurate with alcohol present to know the FG but if you keep getting the same reading you can call it done

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Actually a refractometer is very accurate within 2 gravity points (0.002) if you use a good calculator like this one:

And calibrate and read it correctly using guidance such as my standard:

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I actually use that calculator and double check when im ready to keg and find the FG to be close. Ive read that its not always the case so i double check.

I just measured it and took a taste test.

At the same time I bought the kit a second time and did it right the second time.

Despite the error, both have roughly the same OG and current FG (not the official FG yet though). From sampling the uncarbonated flat beer, I think I actually like the one I screwed up better and decided against adding in more water.

I might change my mind once its bottled and carbonated, but I don’t think, other than losing a quarter of my beer, overboiling it did that much harm.

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