Adding water later

[ianac1]

I've just started a coopers irish stout kit and was planning on topping it up to the 20L mark but the amount of froth on this stuff is ridiculous!

Looks like a smashing big bucket of latte, anyway i was only able to add 16L of water due to the froth and i've never had this problem before making 5 gallon batches.

I have read about people adding water at a later stage so was just wondering when would be the best time to add the extra 4L to get it up to the 20L mark?

Any advice greatly appreaciated

Cheers
Ian

[dedken]

Er.. that's what I'm about to do to my 'Dedken's Ditch's stout' right now, only the water I used has been boiled and has 300g of dark soft sugar dissolved in it!
If you do add water, make sure you've boiled it first or dispatch it from a sterilised vessel or you could introduce an infection. Personally I don't know whether it's advisable to top up or not, but I'm going to it anyway, and pay the penalty if necessary.

[boingy]

Top it up as soon as you can fit it in. Boiled, cooled water would be best but you can just use water straight from the tap.

[Ditch]

Why boil all that water or risk adding C's to ye wort by chucking in straight tap water?

What I'd do is consider how half a crushed camden tablet sorts out five gallons of tap water. 1/4 tab's gonna take care of 2 1/2 gallons of tap water then. 1/8 tab? Cheaper and far less fuss than boiling all that water, surely?

Suitably treat cold tap water. Chuck what ye don't need down the drain. Or, I dunno; Water ye plants with it?

[dedken]

Sure, you can use a tablet if you like. What I was getting at was that it's fine to pour the water straight in if you can put your fv under the tap. Otherwise during the process of transferring water it will come into contact with a vessel of some kind. So it's either sterilise the water, or sterilise the vessel you transfer it in. The reason I was boiling the water was to sterilise the sugar.

[boingy]

Ian only needs to add 4 litres. I assume the froth he is talking about is the froth from adding the water to the kit rather than the fermentation starting so he just needs to get the extra water in there as soon as the froth has subsided. If my assumption is correct then oxygen is not a problem and unless he treated the other 16 litres of water it won't really matter what he does with the extra 4 litres.

[ianac1]

Thanks to all for the advice.

Boingy you're right, the froth is just from stirring while making the kit up, not fermenting.

The other 16L came straight from the tap into the fv, I was just wondering wether adding it during fermentation has started (which it hasn't yet, no bubbles in the airlock anyway) would cause any problems.

If i can get it in there even before fermentation starts would that be ok or should i wait until it has started before adding the water?

I always use water straight from the tap and never had a problem.

[BarnsleyBrewer]

Why boil all that water or risk adding C's to ye wort by chucking in straight tap water?

What I'd do is consider how half a crushed camden tablet sorts out five gallons of tap water. 1/4 tab's gonna take care of 2 1/2 gallons of tap water then. 1/8 tab? Cheaper and far less fuss than boiling all that water, surely?

Suitably treat cold tap water. Chuck what ye don't need down the drain. Or, I dunno; Water ye plants with it?

That's what I do to make up the shortfall after boiling, I use to boil it...not now!

BB

[ianac1]

Forgot to ask, water at around 20 degrees C and give it a good stir after adding?

[boingy]

Yes, get the water in as soon as it fits. Anywhere around 20 degrees will be fine. It's such a small quantity that it is not really going to affect the overall temperature too much. Give it a quick stir with a sanitised spoon and it will all be fine.

[ianac1]

I added water straight from the tap just after boingys last post, 4L 18-20 degrees C then gave it a quick stir.

Still haven't had any airlock activity so checked gravity this morning and it's at 1.014-16 so it's either been fermenting or (hopefully) still is.

It smells fine, some bubbles/fizz on top as expected but there's alot of what looks like small brown particles floating around on the surface too which i'm not too sure what to make of? hard to describe, maybe similar looking to ground coffee is how i could best describe it, anyone got a clue what this stuff is, can't be yeast can it?

I'll keep an eye on it and check gravity again in 3-4 days.

[boingy]

The brown particles are fine. Yeast is a law unto itself and can produce all sorts of weird stuff. The important thing is that the fermentation is proceeeding so just let it get on with it. The reason your airlock is not going is likely to be that the C02 produced by the yeast is finding another way out of the bucket, probably because the lid is not making a good seal. This does not really matter as the CO2 will form a protective blanket on top of the beer.

In summary: everything is fine!

[ianac1]

Thanks guys, sounds like eveythings fine then.

It's an older FV my dad bought from boots years back i'm using that i cut a hole in the lid of myself (it didn't have one) and i never made a great job of it to say the least so c02 could be escaping from around there.

[ianac1]

Just to say thanks for the advice guys.

All appears to be going well!

Just added 4L straight from the tap (good Scottish water) , floating brown bits (protein?) have gone and the gravity has dropped from 1.016 two days ago to 1.012 today.

No idea what the SG was, didn't fancy fighting my way through the foam or removing any stout to find out but does anyone know what it would have been around or maybe hazzard a guess?

Coopers Irish Stout made to 20L with 500g light spraymalt and 350g caster sugar.

[dedken]

Made with 1kg dark spraymalt mine was around 1.039 iirc.