When making my wort for my beer, I put too much water in the wort. What will be the outcome?

Question

I am making 5 gallons of beer.

I was supposed to put 2.5 gallons of water into creating the wort. I measured wrong and put 3.2 gallons of water in the wort.. I ended up with 5 gallons of beer in the end, but what will be the result of this?? In the end the water amount is the same, it's just the wort seems like it may have been a little watered down.. Any input??

Answer 1

You should be absolutely fine if you ended up with 5 gallons of beer.  Depending on your recipe, you may have ended up extracting more hops than the recipe designer (you?) planned on, but it shouldn't make a huge difference.  You may also end up with a lighter color than planned on, but, again, not the end of the world.

The higher the gravity of your boil, the lower your hop extraction.  Boiling a smaller portion of the wort, means that you end up getting less hop bittering than a higher-volume boil.  If you are brewing your beer from a kit, a good kit designer (recipe maker) takes this into consideration and increases the hops to make up for this.  So, if your kit called for an exact volume of 2.5 gallons, you will end up with a slightly higher bittering in your brew.

This will probably imperceptible in a stout, IPA, pale ale, etc.  If, however, you are brewing a lighter beer like a kolsch, golden ale, wheat, etc., it may be perceptible to a discerning taster.

Actually, your beer will be less watered-down from boiling a higher volume.  You should boil the absolute largest volume of beer that your brew kettle and heat source can handle.  This is good brewing practice.  It conditions more of your water, and produces a fuller-bodied beer.

In terms of the color.  The higher the sugar content (read less water, more malt ratio) the more caramelization of the sugars.  In this case you end up with a contra-result of the hop extraction.  A stout, porter, etc, will get darker in a low-volume boil, which may not be all bad.  On the other hand, light ales should be brewed with a high volume, which will keep your results light (low SRM) in color.

In the final analysis, I would worry about it too much.  Papazian says, "Relax, have a homebrew."  Good advice!