Adding additional water before bottling

adding water to finished beer will indeed dilute the beer. why wouldn't it? this is uncommon but not unheard of. some brewers adjust to hit a target gravity, but typical brewers just accept what they get and learn for next time.

a few things to keep in mind.

• most would agree that it is better to have a big 4 gallon IPA over a somewhat watery 5 gallon IPA. it will likely become a PA. less color less bitter less aroma less abv. since an IPA is more of everything, this is a step backwards.
• as you get better at brewing you will have a better feel for your process. you will know what to do to get 5 gallons in time.
• 4 gallons is a lot of beer. 5 is more, but 4 is a lot.
• major macro brewers routinely use "high gravity brewing". basically do what you are proposing. and homebrewing is by definition the opposite of macro brewing. just saying.
• any water you add should be boiled to remove oxygen, not just to sanitize. in fact the oxygen removal part of the process is definitely more of a concern than the idea you would be adding bugs to your finished beer

whatever you decide to do, it's your beer. Enjoy.
Cheers.

 

I would not add water after fermenting. Instead go to some brew calculators for you next beer. Adding water to finished beer will thin it out and dull the flavor.

 

I would not add more water, as already said, it will just water it down.

For your future beers, are you doing full boils? Why are you ending up at 4 gallons if you are attempting to end with 5? If you provide some details, we can help prevent this in the future.

 

Okay, I'm going to take the opposite approach to the votes above. No one has asked if your final gravity is high because of the lower liquid amount, and you did not mention it either. Yes, if you have a higher FG and higher ABV, that is a good beer but it isn't what you wanted to brew. I've added as much as a gallon of water when I added my priming sugar. Just make sure that it isn't loaded with chlorine, and then boil it with your priming sugar. However, it's your beer, and either way is okay.

To answer your last question, if you have only 4 gallons of beer instead of 5, then you need to adjust your priming sugar accordingly to 80% of what you would have used for 5 gallons. Boil it in a quart of water to get a thin sugar solution which will mix better into your beer.

 

It sounds like you have a total of 5 gallons of water not including any that boils off. In a 60 minute boil, you could easily lose 1-1.5 gallons depending on how vigorous the boil is. Most brewing calculator allow you to adjust the amount of water you use to account for boil off.

If you have 4 gallons of beer, you should add enough sugar to carbonate that amount of beer. Adding sugar like you have 5 gallons when you actually have 4 is a recipe for disaster. Regardless, you should not plan on using all of the sugar that comes with a kit, that is almost always too much for a 5 gallon batch. Use a calculator to figure out how much to add. Here is one such calculator http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator

 

Depending on the temperature of the room where you have the bottles, you should be prepared to wait 10-20 days for the beer to feel fully carbonated. Feel free to try one after a week, but it might seem undercarbed and sweet because there is still some sugar in solution. Even if it doesn't taste sweet, the carbonation feeling will likely improve over the first 3-4 weeks.

 

I've watered down my Irish Red recipe the last two time I've brewed it. It comes out porter black and needs to be thinned out a little. Taste your beer and then decide if you want to water it down by 20%. If you like the taste of it, you should leave it alone.

 

I wouldn't dilute it that much, but I would feel totally comfortable using more-than-usual water for the priming sugar to squeeze out an extra bottle or two.

 

It's a lot less uncommon a technique than the posts here would let on. I typically add, and I have one right now that I'm aiming to liquor back a bit before I bottle it. More to share and no one is going to miss that extra percent I took off of an already big beer.

 

My recent tripel wound up stronger than I wanted because my boiloff rate was higher than I predicted. When I bottled it, I used a larger-than-usual amount of water (1.5L) to bring it down something like half a percent in ABV. It turned out great! But I wouldn't dilute a beer that was already at my target ABV, that would just weaken it. Trub loss is a fact of IPA life, if you want to compensate for it you'll have to plan your recipe accordingly (since the hops absorb wort, not just water).