Adding Water

[Auldyin]

In each of the brews I have made, the recipe suggests adding water at various stages to achieve the required volume. At no time do the recipes indicate the temperature of the water to be added. Adding water after the mash does not worry me as the this will be boiled with the rest of the wort. What puzzles me is the sequence

"Cool wort to fermentation temperature",
"Transfer wort to fermenter",
"Add water if needed to achieve final volume"

This confuses me a bit. Am I adding water which has been boiled and cooled to fementation temperature.

Thanks in advance
Mike

 

[merfizle]

To me it's non-boiled but could be either. I take it as adding water to meet pre-boil volume if doing a mini-mash with extract or meeting batch size volume if doing a partial boil on a stove top, for example.

Mark

 

[Auldyin]

Nope, this is full grain. The recipes suggest adding water to achieve the final volume in the fermenter. At this stage the wort has been boiled then passed through the cooler to reach fermentation temperature any further water added could have impurities as it has not been boiled and would also require to be at fermentation temperature. At least thats my guess!!!

 

[twhitaker]

I never top up fermentor. I focus hard to achieve all my volumes before that and minimal losses from transfers. Once the wort is in my fermentor I dont' top up. Just my way, I can taste dilution. I make the batch size a little bigger to compensate for losses.

 

[KellerBrauer]

Greetings All - I agree with twhitaker.  I never add anything to my ferment or other than my yeast slurry.  In fact, I have never really used the suggestion to add additional water to reach a certain mark; doing so tells me my equipment profile needs to be fine tuned - which I had to do several times to come to the point in my brew day where all levels were achieved.  Admittedly, my efficiency suffered a bit as a result, but my losses were quite minimal as compared to achieving proper levels without having to add water.

 

[dfsenra]

Found this old topic here, funny because I have the same question today in 2022.
Can anyone give a help about that "Add water if needed to achieve final volume"?
I've just installed BeerSmith 3 and the statement is the same.

PS: my doubt is related to the risk to contaminate the sterile wort.
I was wondering here, maybe it would be better to calibrate the equipment container, so you can check your boil volume "on time". If you realize that the post boil volume it will be lower than the expected, so you can add some water to it to achieve the final fermentation volume, boil for a few minutes, cool the wort and avoid any contamination into the fermenter.

Does that make sense?

Thanks.

 

[GigaFemto]

Yes, absolutely. Adding non-boiled water to the fermenter to get to your desired volume is a kind of last resort when your process control has failed. I would rather accept a smaller batch than take a risk with the water, but these days I have my volumes figured out pretty well and I never come up short on volume by more than a tiny bit.

--GF

 

[BOB357]

Nope, this is full grain. The recipes suggest adding water to achieve the final volume in the fermenter. At this stage the wort has been boiled then passed through the cooler to reach fermentation temperature any further water added could have impurities as it has not been boiled and would also require to be at fermentation temperature. At least thats my guess!!!

If you haven't got your equipment profile and process dialed in and are coming up short on volume into the fermenter, distilled is the safest water addition. Just make sure to spray some Sanitizer around the neck and cap of the bottle(s) before opening. After a few batches you should have a handle on your equipment and process and not need to add water.

 

[dfsenra]

Hi GigaFemto & BOB357,

thanks a lot for you replies.
That makes a lot of sense, now it is crystal clear to me.

Cheers!