Mr.TC

Recipes 

I am new and have read a few books on how to make your beer high gravity, though I am lost on what it actually does. Could you let me know what the deal is. High grav vs. reg beer?

maltMonkey

Recipes 

high gravity = more fermentable sugars = higher alcohol content

malkore

Recipes 

and to quantify this further, a general guideline of 1.060 is when beers start to be considered 'high gravity'.

You'll get different opinions on what gravity qualifies as 'high', but generally speaking 1.060 is high enough that dry yeast will have problems rehydrating at that level becuase they can't pull liquid into the cell walls as easily.

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Malkore
Primary: English Mild
On tap: Pale Ale, Lancelot's Wheat, English Brown Ale, Steam Beer, HoovNuts IPA
Bottled: MOAM, Braggot, Raspberry Melomel, Merlot, Apfelwein, Pyment, Sweet mead, Cabernet
Gal in 2009: 27, Gal in 2010: 34, Gal in 2011: 13, Gal in 2012: 10

Bills Brew

Recipes 

Don't mean to hijack this thread, but:

Do high gravity beers and dry yeast take longer to ferment to completion?

Make a stout with IG=1.072 and Nottingham yeast. Also had 9# of LME and 1# of DME. Fermentation kicked off pretty good at the lower end of the temperature range 3 weeks ago. Now, there is no Krausen, and virtually no air lock activity, but the gravity keeps dropping gradually. My experience with Nottingham yeast was that it took off fast, fermented hard (use a blow off tube), and finished within a week. I'm just waiting it out now.

malkore

Recipes 

high gravity beers take longer to ferment, period. yeast is yeast, and the more sugar it has to convert, the longer it takes. as alcohol levels increase, fermentation also slows.

3 weeks a long time for 1.072 though. How well did you aerate the wort prior to pitching? add any yeast nutrient?? what temperature is the fermenter at? what's the gravity right now??

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Malkore
Primary: English Mild
On tap: Pale Ale, Lancelot's Wheat, English Brown Ale, Steam Beer, HoovNuts IPA
Bottled: MOAM, Braggot, Raspberry Melomel, Merlot, Apfelwein, Pyment, Sweet mead, Cabernet
Gal in 2009: 27, Gal in 2010: 34, Gal in 2011: 13, Gal in 2012: 10

PseudoChef

Recipes 

This isn't exactly true if you take into account pitching of the proper yeast cell count for the desired beer. My 1.092 888 RIS fermented out in 3 and a half days. It's been my highest gravity to date and the quickest ferment.

Bills Brew

Recipes 

Gravity now is 1.026. The wort was aerated by pouring from the kettle into the bottling bucket and then pouring from the bucket into the carboy. No, I didn't add any yeast nutrients. Initial fermentation temp was around 56^F for about a week then moved to 63^F, where it has been for two weeks.

9/9

Recipes 

I am about to brew a recipe with an estimated OG of 1.068. Should a single pack of rehydrated Nottinghams be okay?

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Primary: empty
Secondary: AHB Dry Mead (17)
Bottled: EdWort's Apfelwein (15), Vienna - Cascade SMaSH (19)
Drinking:MO-Amarillo SMaSH (14), BierMucher's Black Pearl Porter (13), Munich-NB SMaSH (16), Lemon Summer Blonde (18)
Planning: Belgian Brown (20)

PseudoChef

Recipes 

I would think so.

A single pack of S-05 took a 1.080 I did down to 1.017

menschmaschine

Recipes 

We should mention dextrins here, too. This more applies to all-grain, but a high OG beer with a lot of dextrins won't necessarily yield more alcohol. High OG w/ normal or low anticipated FG = more fermentables = higher alcohol.