help too much water added - can i rescue it?

[martin22]

Well last nights first brew was a bit of a nightmare, and i think i've ruined my Festival Golden stag kit.

Started off allright, everything organised and clean, added the malt pouches with the hot wate and stirred it all up...

then 18 month old daughter decided to try and climb out of the cot, succeeded in the ascent to the cot rail then fell on the floor, cue much screaming and blood from a cut lip

Anyway took ages to calm her down and by this time the wife was a bit p***ed off with all my clutter in the kitcen so tried to finishas quick as possible.

Unfortunately i read the 'add water to 23L' as add 23L of water

So i have a brew with 4 L water extra in it now. What can i do to help its chances? No homebrew shop near me so i cant get any malt extract or anything. Would anything like brown sugar / golden syrup help, or is it just a case of just chalk it up as experience and try and enjoy my 40 odd pints of watery beer?!.

cheers

 

[NickW]

Order some malt extract online and add it when it arrives, otherwise, watery beer!

 

[evanvine]

If it's the ABV you want to recover, you can either add sugar (as you have no malt) or reduce (if you've not added the yeast) by boiling.

 

[Rolfster]

Order some malt extract online and add it when it arrives, otherwise, watery beer!

+1

 

[martin22]

any reccomendations of amount / type of malt extract?

And do i just pour it in and stir around? Will it dissolve ok at the 20 degrees the fermenter is sitting at?

 

[Pinchy]

Get yourself down to wilkos for some malt extract :thumb:

 

[Dave1970]

The ad's for Festival Gold reckon 4.5% alcohol with a finishing gravity of 1.009

If this is right that gives an OG of 1.043

Your extra 4 litres would take this down to 1.037 - if it still fermented down to 1.009 this would give you 3.7% Alcohol - not a disaster - more of a concern might be the dilution of flavour.

If it's just the alcohol content that worries you you could get back to 1043 by adding 483 grammes of sugar dissolved is as little water as possible by boiling and then cooling, this won't help with flavour though.

If you're more bothered about flavour then some malt extract is going to be required - you could maybe counter the dilution in hoppiness by throwing a few dry whole hops in later on in the ferment. If you do add malt extract do the same as the sugar...dissolve in maybe half a litre of water, boil for 5mins to kill off any bacteria, cool and add.

All these numbers were figured out using the forum calculators (see link top left) well worth a look

 

[Rolfster]

Some good comprehensive advice from Dave!

 

[graysalchemy]

I would be tempted to take evanvines advice if you haven't added the yeast and even if you have only added in the last 12hrs then it wouldn't make much difference. Personally I would take out a gallon and reduce it back down to about half, then repeat with another gallon. You will probably caramelize the wort but no bad thing this is what i do with a scottish heavy, caramelize the first runnings out of the mash tun before. That should get your volume back on target and also the Original gravity.

:thumb:

 

[Edindie]

I did exactly the same thing as you when I first made that kit. It turned out fine - so good I immediately went out and bought another to do properly. There was no memorable difference (I didn't compare the two side by side).

Great kit; but the hops dissappeared after 3 months in the bottle for me, so drink it as soon as poss!

 

[martin22]

think I might just leave it then if yours turned out fine after doing the same thing.

probably be struggling for time this week as well to start boiling stuff up. Anyway, a lesson learned for the future.

Thanks for all the replies

 

[graysalchemy]

This might help in future :whistle: :whistle:

[youtube:3twni7kj]jq3H1QZlct0[/youtube:3twni7kj]

 

[evanvine]

Now that's just taking the **** GA!

 

[martin22]

haha yes maybe I should pop along!

Anyway it might turn out alright, and at least the little one is alright, could have been worse than just a cut lip.

 

[graysalchemy]

Yes perhaps I jested a little to much at your expense given the circumstances of your dilemma.