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Author Topic: Correcting over watered wort due to wort chiller malfunction  (Read 3018 times)

Offline TheJosh

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So my friend that is now aggressively pursuing homebrewing borrowed by immersion wort chiller to brew a AG 5  gallon IPA.  While chilling the wort, he stepped away for a short while and came back to find the chiller was leaking water into the wort from the intake point (clamp wasn't tight enough.  I feel that bad that I didn't think to warn him to check it since we've had some huge temperature fluxes recently).

So he pulled the hops out and attempted to boil it down over a couple of hours. But, alas, he still ended up with near 6 gallons at 1.044. Original goal was 5 gallons at 1.065 or so.  At this point, I think he'll just have to live with it.

But I thought I'd open the situation up to any ideas as to how to best try to correct an "over watering" situation such as this just in case a similar situation happens in the future *knock on wood*.

Offline FirstStateBrewer

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Re: Correcting over watered wort due to wort chiller malfunction
« Reply #1 on: July 06, 2012, 12:01:07 pm »
Keep boiling until he gets the correct volume.
Scott B

Offline weithman5

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Re: Correcting over watered wort due to wort chiller malfunction
« Reply #2 on: July 06, 2012, 12:06:13 pm »
sounds like time to try an eisipa 8), after fermentation, ;ut in to two cornies etc and find (make?) a friend with some restraunteur who owns a walk in freezer.
Don AHA member

Offline alohabrewer

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Re: Correcting over watered wort due to wort chiller malfunction
« Reply #3 on: July 06, 2012, 12:42:52 pm »
The way I see it is you have 3 choices

1. keep boiling
2. Add some DME to raise the gravity
3. Go with it, look through the style guidlines and find some parameters it fits and call it that style
Corporal-BN Army
Hudson Valley Homebrewers

Offline dbeechum

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Re: Correcting over watered wort due to wort chiller malfunction
« Reply #4 on: July 06, 2012, 01:29:55 pm »
3. Go with it, look through the style guidlines and find some parameters it fits and call it that style it's beer

Fixed that for you. :)
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Offline tschmidlin

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Re: Correcting over watered wort due to wort chiller malfunction
« Reply #5 on: July 09, 2012, 12:58:22 am »
From the sounds of it he was off on his gravity anyway - not your fault.  6 gallons of 1.044 is 264 points of gravity, boiled down to 5 gallons and the OG would have been 1.053.  Adding water did not make the sugar go away.

But yeah, pitch yeast, ferment, drink it.
Tom Schmidlin

Offline Jimmy K

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Re: Correcting over watered wort due to wort chiller malfunction
« Reply #6 on: July 09, 2012, 09:59:02 am »
It is better to learn to tighten those clamps on water lines than propane lines.
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Offline TheJosh

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Re: Correcting over watered wort due to wort chiller malfunction
« Reply #7 on: July 09, 2012, 01:11:44 pm »
All sound advice, fellas. Thank you.

He ended up getting some extra hops to dry hop with in order to get some of that aroma back.  It'll be a little weak but should make for a reasonable session beer.

"Go with it . . . it's beer" - Perfect! I may have to make that a mantra for life.