Dilution Question

[bullsneck]

Evening brewers,

I brewed a Belgian Dubbel the other night. Here's the recipe. I ended up with a 1.071 wort (without the table sugar added), when I was aiming for a 1.068 wort (and that's WITH the table sugar).

I'm thinking that diluting is the way to drop the wort down to 1.064 for pitching. I plan to add the sugar after fermentation has settled a little.

The question I am asking is, will diluting effect the bitterness of the beer? Or am I way off.

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

bullsneck.

 

[BjornJ]

Hi mate,
diluting the beer will affect the OG as well as the IBUs.

The bittering compounds will have more volume to cover, if you will.


Play with the volume calculation to find what volume you want to dilute to;

Old Volume / New Volume = dilute factor

for argument sake you have 25 litres and you think you want to dilute to 30 litres.

25 litres / 30 litres = 0.83333

that means if diluting 25 litres to 30, you have to multiply all values by 0.8333.


Say your OG was 1.074.
74 x 0.8333 = 62 (so OG after diluting will be 1.062)

Say your IBU was 40.
40 x 0.8333 = 33.3 IBUs.


Before starting to dilute, play around with your recipe adjusting efficiency until you get the OG you ended up with.
Now record this "real" IBU and not the one you would have had if you had in fact ended on the OG you aimed for.


thanks
Bjorn

 

[Dave70]

I would have thought diluting it back to the figures produced by the software would simply bring everything back to where it's meant to be.
I've ran into a similar situation with a strong ale due to an extended boil. (Yapping on the phone, not watching the clock) It took me 3 liters of water to get things back to the correct OG. Didn't hurt the beer, although it did spend a month in the bottle.

 

[mikk]

Dave70's situation is a different one, where you were simply adding water to get back to the correct wort volume, whereas Bullsneck has (i presume) the correct volume but the incorrect OG. The anticipated OG & actual OG are VERY different though- are you sure it was measured/calculated correctly, & that the wort volume is correct?!

IMHO, Bjorns reasoning is correct, & your bitterness will be affected. If i was in your position, i would perhaps only dilute it a little bit & use less sugar, or even better, i'd work with what you've got & look at modifying your sugar additions to turn the Dubbel into a Dark Strong similar to a Rocheforte 8- ie, a dark strong at the very lower end of the definition...

 

[MarkBastard]

I'd be triple checking that your SG sample is correct first. Also it's important to work out why the OG is higher than you expected. Is it better efficiency? Lower volume?