Drinking plain wort!!??

timmystank · 05-06-2009, 04:09 PM

Ok crazy question. Anyone know what would happen in you didnt add the water to your wort and fermented it that way? Would it be some sort of super ABV beer or maybe even liquor.....Im sure it would just taste like s**t.

Ewalk02 · 05-06-2009, 04:16 PM

I'm guessing you are extract brewing and talking about the water you add to at the end to bring the temp down. Anyways I would think that you would have a higher ABV beer but at some point I'm sure the alcohol level would get too high and it would kill your yeast. Unless you are using a huge starter or yeast thats meant for high gravity worts you would most likely only see it go to about 9-10% alcohol.

I'm not sure how it would taste without knowing your recipe/yeast but a high gravity wort puts a lot of unneeded stress on regular yeast so I can't say it would be all that great.

Give it a try though and prove me wrong, it can't hurt anything (other than the wallet)!

Bowtiebrewery · 05-06-2009, 04:31 PM

Can Yeast physically eat and produce Alcohol from a super concentrated solution of Liquid DME??

I would think that it would try and u would end up with a very sticky mess in whatever vessel you put it in... I would say this is a waste of your extract... but thats me.

**Edcculus** · 05-06-2009, 04:41 PM

I doubt yeast would do much of anything to concentrated LME.

menschmaschine · 05-06-2009, 04:57 PM

The water activity level of LME is probably too low to support beer yeast. Anything with a water activity level of below .60 doesn't support much of any microbial growth. Honey is ~.60, so LME is probably slightly lower.

**conpewter** · 05-06-2009, 05:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by menschmaschine

The water activity level of LME is probably too low to support beer yeast. Anything with a water activity level of below .60 doesn't support much of any microbial growth. Honey is ~.60, so LME is probably slightly lower.

Eeek... my Dark Lord clone is planned to be .4 I hope a huge starter and plenty of oxygen will allow the yeast to tear through that. Luckily some of the fermentables will be honey and molasses, so I can put those in later in the ferment to make the initial wort less sugary.

Sigafoos · 05-06-2009, 05:16 PM

Every yeast has an alcohol tolerance. If the wort is too thick, eventually it'll just kill itself with the alcohol it produces.

menschmaschine · 05-06-2009, 05:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by conpewter

Eeek... my Dark Lord clone is planned to be .4 I hope a huge starter and plenty of oxygen will allow the yeast to tear through that. Luckily some of the fermentables will be honey and molasses, so I can put those in later in the ferment to make the initial wort less sugary.

How are you measuring water activity level?

Quote from FDA:

Quote:

The water activity (aW) of a food is the ratio between the vapor pressure of the food itself, when in a completely undisturbed balance with the surrounding air media, and the vapor pressure of distilled water under identical conditions. A water activity of 0.80 means the vapor pressure is 80 percent of that of pure water.

In simple terms, it's a measurement of "available" or "free" water in a food... i.e., available for use by microbes. It's one of the factors used to determine the risk potential of food spoilage (pathogenic microbial growth). Anything with a aW of less than .85, does not support the growth of pathogenic microbes.

Foods with a high concentration of sugar have a low aW. Jams, jellies, honey, sugar syrups, etc. fall into this category. So raw LME would too and it's probably so low that yeast growth isn't supported. But mix a little water in and heat it up and the aW will shoot up. It would take an insanely high specific gravity for an LME solution to have a aW too low for yeast.

**david_42** · 05-06-2009, 06:12 PM

LME has a specific gravity of 1.450 or so. You might be able to ferment a 50/50 mix with water, but it would be extremely difficult. Anything over 1.150 takes special techniques and special yeasts.

**conpewter** · 05-06-2009, 06:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by menschmaschine

How are you measuring water activity level?

Quote from FDA:

In simple terms, it's a measurement of "available" or "free" water in a food... i.e., available for use by microbes. It's one of the factors used to determine the risk potential of food spoilage (pathogenic microbial growth). Anything with a aW of less than .85, does not support the growth of pathogenic microbes.

Foods with a high concentration of sugar have a low aW. Jams, jellies, honey, sugar syrups, etc. fall into this category. So raw LME would too and it's probably so low that yeast growth isn't supported. But mix a little water in and heat it up and the aW will shoot up. It would take an insanely high specific gravity for an LME solution to have a aW too low for yeast.

So yeah I was thinking percentage. So I found with a SG for 1.162 I'd have about 40% sugar in solution, this is if I had all the molasses and honey in at the beginning which I wouldn't.