Beer Forum

Just noticed I didn't add enough water to top off my partial boil. It was for an English IPA and I under diluted by about a half gallon. I had more trube than I thought I did when I threw it in the fermenter. I transferred to the bottling bucket and noticed it only came up to about 4.5 gallons.

It was a pretty simple recipe:

6 lbs. of Gold LME
8 oz. of Carapils
1 oz. of Fuggles at 60 mins, 20 mins, 2 mins, and dry hop for 8 days.

1275 Thames Valley Wyeast.

I underpitched a little (on purpose) in order to keep my fermentation temp. under control (on the previous batch, I had a hard time keeping my fermentation temp under control right when the fermentation started going hard - it shot up to 76º [or higher, yipes] in the middle of the night and I have no idea how long it stayed up there). I left it in primary for two weeks around 65º F (fermentation started after 25 hours), secondary for two weeks (8 days of which I dry-hopped).

Question is: what should I expect? I tasted a bit of it and I can't find the words to say exactly what it tasted like. It had a bunch of earthiness to it that I wasn't expecting (maybe the fuggles dry-hop?). What flavor flaw would indicate if the yeast was too stressed out and died before it fully fermented? What other possible problems could there be due to the underdilution and what flavor flaws would be evidence of those problems (I'm trying to improve both my palate and my brewing technique and any information would be helpful)?

Thanks in advance for any answers/help.

"underdiluting" shouldn't create any off flavors so to speak. Assuming everything else is fine it would only increase your OG. I would be more worried about under pitching. That can cause some undesired esters.

Dmac08 wrote:"underdiluting" shouldn't create any off flavors so to speak. Assuming everything else is fine it would only increase your OG. I would be more worried about under pitching. That can cause some undesired esters.

Problem is that your underpitching combined with the increased OG due to a more concentrated wort is going to do two things.

A) Previously mentioned esters. In beers I have made these come out as fruity flavors. These will be increased because your initial pitching rates were slightly underpitched for the problem dilution. A higher OG requires a higher pitch.

B) Your Attenuation can be affected. You might end up under attenuated and get a very sweet beer.

Of course this depends on what your target and actual OG's were. If you were shooting for say 1.051 and hit that but you volume happens to be 4 gallons or so you are still fine. If you were shooting for 1.051 and due to the lower volume (among a number of other things that can go wrong on brew day) ended up with 1.061 you might be in trouble. If you didn't take any gravity readings I suggest you do in the future. OG's and FG's are pretty much 10x as important (if not more so) as volume when it comes to the outcome of the beer.

BrewChemistinCO wrote:

Dmac08 wrote:"underdiluting" shouldn't create any off flavors so to speak. Assuming everything else is fine it would only increase your OG. I would be more worried about under pitching. That can cause some undesired esters.

Problem is that your underpitching combined with the increased OG due to a more concentrated wort is going to do two things.

A) Previously mentioned esters. In beers I have made these come out as fruity flavors. These will be increased because your initial pitching rates were slightly underpitched for the problem dilution. A higher OG requires a higher pitch.

B) Your Attenuation can be affected. You might end up under attenuated and get a very sweet beer.

Of course this depends on what your target and actual OG's were. If you were shooting for say 1.051 and hit that but you volume happens to be 4 gallons or so you are still fine. If you were shooting for 1.051 and due to the lower volume (among a number of other things that can go wrong on brew day) ended up with 1.061 you might be in trouble. If you didn't take any gravity readings I suggest you do in the future. OG's and FG's are pretty much 10x as important (if not more so) as volume when it comes to the outcome of the beer.

I remember being about a few points high on the starting gravity (this is all from memory, the notes are at home) and finishing a point or two over. I seem to remember the FG being 1.011 (I remember because I was glad it still got down that far).

In my modest experience, a point or two shouldn't matter and you should be OK. 1.052 when you are going for 1.051 is fine. 1.061 when you are going for 1.051 is not. As far as what the window of acceptibility is I can't tell ya. I'm an anal bastard when it comes to numbers so I obsess about hitting them spot on but I know its not necessary. Hope this helps.

Thanks, all.

Your information was...

...informative.

Seriously, thanks for the (encouraging) words. I'll have to get ahold of my technique a bit but I'm lookin' forward to the next batch (an oatmeal brown mild), which will include pitching a batch-appropriate volume of yeast.

I'll report back with the results of this English IPA-cum-barleyweiner if anyone gives more than a single shit about the outcome.

If you finished at 1.011 it sounds like you did fine, if your fermentation temp was pretty stable.

The only other thing that under diluting might cause would be less hop utilization (exacerbated by the concentrated boil), and you probably missed the recipes BU:GU (or balance within the beer).

Chances are, you'll probably end up with more of an ESB than an IPA, if you don't quite hit IPA targets/levels, but you'll probably be just fine.

Let us know how it turns out!