What a screwed up brew day for me

[Banjo-guy]

I did my second all grain today. It was going great ( or so I thought ). I was feeling really confident. "I done this before "… "I really know what I'm doing now!" Wrong!

The mash went perfectly. I hit my temperatures. They dropped a couple of degrees but were still in the 152 - 154 range. That's what I was going for. Then I took reading of the wort... 1.020.The estimate is 1.046. I have no idea why I am so off. I used Beersmith and Simple Biab to get my volumes.

I could deal with the gravity being off. I'll just add extract.
The next event was not so fixable.

I was anxious to use my new immersion wort chiller and had it all cleaned, sanitized and ready to go.
I had it hooked up to my garden hose. I started to chill down and the discharge end of the chiller started to gyrate around like a snake charmer's snake. It was jumping all over the place from the force of the discharge water. I had too much water flow going through it.

I grabbed it so that the water wouldn't get into the wort. To keep it from moving I put the end of the tube under a heavy planter. The next thing I know the clamp comes flying off and the water is gushing all over. Some of it is getting into the kettle. I'm screwed.
I decided to try and save it. I put 2.5 gallons into a pot a brought it to a boil. I added extract, repaired the chiller, cooled and pitched the yeast.

It turns out in my panic I added 1 lb. too much extract so that I will get an ABV of 8.1%

I'm wondering if I should let it go or add water and split it into two batches.

What a day!

[Gymrat]

Oh heck! Let it go. In a few months you will have a really nice sipping beer.

[haerbob3]

Go for it dry hop it!!

[Gymrat]

I might add that the first time I ever had a day where something didnt go terribly wrong once I went to all grain was 2 years into my all grain experience. But the beer was always wonderful. Sometimes totally different than I was shooting for but wonderful nonetheless.

[John Sand]

Yes Banjo, we've all been there. I used insufficient water in my first all grain. I let it go, but at bottling I added 3oz water to half of the bottles. The watered bottles were in pints. This brought it back to the originally intended gravity. It worked, though I should have used filtered or boiled water. Those bottles took a long time to carb, and it may have been because of the chlorine in the added water.
And I've probably screwed up something every time: a boil over, spill, forgot to sanitize my measuring cup.
Mistakes are a great homebrew tradition.

[FedoraDave]

It happens. And in the end, you'll have beer and a great story to go with it.

RDWHAHB.