can i top up a 5 gal batch with cool boiled water?

[Richy25]

Quick easy help needed, topping up a 5 gall brew
Today at 9:52am Mark & Quote Quote Modify Remove
Hi all, just a quick question i'm brewing a brown rice and raisin wine in 5gal tub, been stirring for 2 weeks now, and have just removed the rice and rasins ( took up about 1 gal and half space!) im left with 3 gallons of must, am I ok just to add 2 gallons of cooled boiled water to top it up to the 5 gal mark, i used a recipe for 5 gallons so it has enough ingredients in. Please answer soon as this is happening in real time! Many thanks!

[gitface]

Hi Richy

If you just add the water then you will be reducing the potential alcohol of the brew.

Did you take the sg of the must before you added the yeast? If so you can take the sg now and work out the current alcohol and then add a sugar solution to ensure it ferments to the right per-cent. There is a atrical in the tutorial section regarding this.

If you don't know what the sg was then a rough estimate would be figure out the volume of water to add and add sugar to this to bring the sg to ~1.080 then you should be in the right ball park for a final alcohol per-cent.

Mark...........

[Richy25]

Thanks Mark, i didn't take the SG as ive made this quite a few times and it always works out, the thing is all the sugar is in already 10lb's so wont adding more mess up the ratio, i.e there should be enough sugar in for 5 gallons of water already? Thanks the for help!

[gitface]

If you added 10lb, which would give you an sg of 1.080 for 5 gal, at the beginning then just the water should be fine. Although some of that sugar will have been lost when you took the solids out, but also some sugar will have come from the raisins.

As the mantra goes "Your hydrometer is your friend".

If I was doing this I would add the ingredients except the yeast and sugar and let is stand for a day for the natural sugars to come out into the liquid then measured the sg and added sugar as needed. To me the sugar on a receipt is a guide to how much you might need, this is especially true when using fresh/dried ingredients as the sugar content can not always be predicted.

Mark................

[Richy25]

Cheers again mark, i checked the s.g of what I had, (i decided to go for 2 gallons boiled, cooled water i there!) After adding the water it was at 1.020, had a little taste and it was tasting pretty potent. LOl, this wine is a winner and AWAYS ends up strongish! SO its dropped 0.060 in the two weeks i been stiring it. SO probably its ok I normally add weakish sugar water after the level drops after the 1st rack (haha scientific i know!not)

I normally always use the hydrometer, but forgot on this occasion in my haste for a big booze up!

Its bubbling like hell now the airlocks on so fingers crossed, as its a big batch!