Too Much Alcohol...

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tflew

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So my chestnut beer has been fermenting a week now and I took a gravity reading today...ABV is at 12.8% and tastes like an off flavored Mad Dog. Is there anything I can do to soften the alcohol taste a bit, will it get better with age, or is there not much I can do about it?


Thanks
 
Are you sure you are reading your alcohol level correctly?. You can not read the alcohol directly off a refractometer or hydrometer. You would have had to have an absolutely huge starting gravity to get that much alcohol.
 
Well, OK. If those readings are correct than you are correct on your alcohol level. Was it your intention to make a beer with this much alcohol? Time will mellow the hot taste, but at that alcohol level you are probably looking at a lot of time, like a year or more to completely mellow. It might be drinkable in several months. You are at Barleywine levels there.

Other than waiting for it to age out, your only other real option would be to brew a similar recipe at a very low gravity and mix the two beers together. It would still take a while for some of the alcohol heat to mellow out.

Was there something specific you were trying to emulate with that recipe?
 
You now have an "Imperial" brown ale. Big beers like that need to age longer. Give it 3-4 months at least. Should be delicious.

So...... To get an OG of 1.110 you need to add way more ingredients than you would have gotten with any kit, and any recipe would have been specifically for a very high alcohol beer. An OG of 1.110 is a lot. Like over the top a lot. It's sort of hard to do by accident honestly. Did you follow a recipe?
 
Let it age for a LONG time. I have a 10% imperial stout that is in bottles right now. It sat on the yeast for 2 months and I bottled it last month. I'm not even going to think of cracking open a bottle until December.
 
1. Let it age.
2. You fermented fairly quick for that big of a beer. Did you have a warmer fermentation?
3. Perhaps you're O.G. was incorrect? I.E. Extract brew that wasn't mixed well.
 
OP, if this was an extract kit and you used water to top off, your gravtiy wasn't really 1.110 - you simply didn't fully mix the top off water in, and your gravity sample contained more of the concentrated wort than the top off water.

This is a COMMON mistake for new brewers (I did it on my first two batches). If you used the correct amount of extract and hit your volume, your gravity can only be within a couple thousandths of the recipe - there is a set amount of sugar there, and your process can't increase this.

Hot flavors come from fusel alcohols and green beer, and usually have to do with you letting your fermentation temps get too high. Either way, you are still probably going to have to let this batch age a bit (but probably not a year or more... I'm betting that your gravity was a lot lower than you measured).
 
Thanks everyone for the help so far

Heres the recipe..its a GF batch that I based off of a Chestnut recipe I found on this site.

2.5 Gallon Batch


2.5 lbs medium roast chestnut chips
2.5 lbs corn sugar
1 lbs Dry Brown Rice Extract
1 oz Columbus hops
1 oz Cascade
Whirlfloc tab
Safale us-05 yeast


Steeped 2.5 pounds of Light Roast Chestnuts for 18 hours at about 150. Added 1.5 tsp of Amylase Enzyme and Pectic Enzyme at beginning. Bring to 160 degrees for 30 minutes then sparge grain bag.

The temp was 70 degrees when I took the reading, and I made the .001 adjustment.

It has been fermenting consistently in the 68-72 degree range for a little over a week now.

Now that homebrewdad mentioned it I am not sure if I took the reading before or after I added the top off water (oops).


Should I just let it sit in primary for a while or should I move it over to secondary and forget about it?


Thanks everyone:mug:
 
I'm not sure what that is. I don't think it's beer.

Not trying to be a jerk. It could absolutely brew a delicious alcoholic beverage. I've just never seen anything like that.

Ah..... Here's the original recipe -
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f164/gf-brewing-chestnuts-157826/#post1837063

Looks like a gluten free beverage? And designed to be very high alcohol? I would love to hear how it tastes.
 
I have made gluten free beers (a few years ago).. without re-checking my recipes [they are in my name dropdown to the left], it seems like a lot of corn sugar.. which will translate to the rocket fuel taste.
Next time I would not make the og so high- stick to 1.050 or so, and you wont have to wait it out.
cheers.
 
y6y6y6 said:
I'm not sure what that is. I don't think it's beer.

Not trying to be a jerk. It could absolutely brew a delicious alcoholic beverage. I've just never seen anything like that.

Ah..... Here's the original recipe -
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f164/gf-brewing-chestnuts-157826/#post1837063

Looks like a gluten free beverage? And designed to be very high alcohol? I would love to hear how it tastes.

Technically it is fermented grains so it is beer.
 
i was wondering why pectin enzyme. then i did a search. apparently there's a lot of pectin in chestnuts. who would have thought?
 
I'm not sure what that is. I don't think it's beer.

Not trying to be a jerk. It could absolutely brew a delicious alcoholic beverage. I've just never seen anything like that.

Ah..... Here's the original recipe -
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f164/gf-brewing-chestnuts-157826/#post1837063

Looks like a gluten free beverage? And designed to be very high alcohol? I would love to hear how it tastes.

Yup thats the recipe I based it off of...I basically just cut the chestnuts/sorgum/corn sugar in half to make a 2.5 gallon batch. Perhaps the corn sugar doesnt scale that way and it should have been less? Also I switched out the sorgum for the brown rice because I wanted to try and avoid the sorgumy taste of the sorgum batch I brewed a little while ago.
 
Well, fair enough. If chestnuts are grain then it's certainly beer. But the recipe is for a high alcohol beer. Nothing wrong with that at all. It will just benefit from a longer aging. Let us know how it turns out.
 
Would it be better to age in secondary for a while or age it in the bottles or some of both? Thanks for the help and Ill report back when its done
 
Would it be better to age in secondary for a while or age it in the bottles or some of both?

It's actually sort of the same thing, assuming it's at FG when you secondary.

I would say secondary for a few weeks, then bottle. That will let you get a good idea where it's at when it goes in the bottle.
 
Awesome thanks. Ill rack it to secondary tonight or tomorrow and let it sit for a while
 
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