Expert: John Snyder - 11/17/2007

Question
I am a beginning home brewer and on our last batch we made an Irish Stout from a kit.  After we steeped our grain, added malt extract, and the bittering hops, my roommate let it boil over.  The specific gravity ended up being very low, 1.040 when it was supposed to be about 1.050. We let it ferment for 2 weeks to try and get a very low ending specific gravity.  We moved it to a secondary fermenter, the specific gravity was only 1.020, leaving us with about a 2.6
alcohol content.  Is there anyway to increase this without ruining what's left of the beer?

Answer
No,not without ruining the taste.The next time,a boil over occurs,evaporate more of the wort,to concentrate it and then don't make the batch back up to 5 gallons.(I'm assuming you were making a 5 gallon brew)Adjust the yeast quantity,and ferment as your recipe calls for.Any other info needed,i will be glad to provide

                   john