Brewing a big beer (1.150) would like some input

I'm going to attempt to brew a beer with an OG of around 1.150. I have come up with a game plan for brewing/fermentation and would like some input from those with experience. A lot of this is thinking out loud so the protocol is not set in stone.

The recipe is a Barleywine but big, I'll post the recipe below. I'm planning on using WLP007 which will hopefully, under optimal conditions, be able to take this to around 15%. Beersmith says 18% but I don't think it will hit the estimated FG (1.017). I'm only doing a 3 gallon batch. Here are the steps I'm planning.

-Making a starter/sacrificial brew of 3 gallons out of some old LME. Stopping the growth at 3 days. I'll pitch my high gravity wort on this.

-Mashing long and low, 148 for 2 hours.

-Brew the planned wort and split it into (3) 1 gallon batches, oxygenating 1 gallon for around 5 minutes and pitching onto yeast cake.

-After 24 hours, oxygenate another gallon of wort and pitch, wait another 24 hours oxygenate the last gallon and pitch to get to the final volume. I'll add servomyces at each wort addition. I'm leery of oxygenating fermenting wort but there will still be some cell growth so I think it is right ?

-Keep in primary for 2 months, rack to secondary to get off of exhausted yeast and age for another 2-3 months then add yeast bottle and wait another 6-8 months before enjoying/choking down/dumping.

What do you think? What can I modify to get the best results?

Here is the recipe:
Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size (fermenter): 3.00 gal
Boil Size: 6.00 gal
Bottling Volume: 3.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.152 SG
Estimated Color: 25.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 86.5 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.00 %
Boil Time: 120 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name
13 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
2 lbs Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM)
1 lbs Aromatic Malt (26.0 SRM)
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM)
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM)
1.00 oz Chinook [13.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min
1.00 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] - Boil 20.0 min
1.00 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min
1 lbs Caramel, Sugar, Table (Sucrose)
1.0 pkg Dry English Ale (White Labs #WLP007)


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 18 lbs 8.0 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 21.88 qt of water at 158.8 F 148.0 F 120 min

White Labs WLP007 says it attenuates up to 80% up to 10% ABV. If you are looking to make a 15-18% ABV beer, this may be the wrong yeast.

Read the descriptions for WLP099, WLP500, WLP510, WLP530, WLP540, and determine what flavor character you want. These will all attenuate at a high rate around 15% ABV.

I read that 007 was good for high gravity beers, didn't catch the 10% part. I've read of some taking wyeast 1056 upto 12% so I was hoping this could get a little further. I've also read bad stuff about wlp099 and I want to stay away from a Belgian strain. I'll have to look into some on that list.

Might wanna consider using distiller's yeast?

I wouldn't start with the turbo yeast, you could ferment with whatever yeast you want to start with (ie. whatever matches the flavor profile you want) and build a second larger starter of the turbo to finish it off. Oh, and by larger starter I mean two to three gallons.

Use two pitches. Start with WLP007. Let that run it's course, you'll get like 10%+ then pitch a large amount of WLP099. You'll retain the flavor profile of the WLP007. Just keep the WLP099 under 70, and you'll be pleasantly surprised. And yes, oxygenate everytime you add more fermentables.

Oh, and add more hops. You need WAYYYYY more bitterness to balance this beer. I'll put it this way, I just made a DFH 120 minute clone (1.182 OG), and used 16oz of hops in a 5 batch. It's still unbalanced towards the sweet side, my pale ale is more bitter.

I would think you could get WLP007 and WLP099 combined to chew through an all malt 1.150 beer. You have the right idea of adding the fermentables slowly over time.

Thanks for the input!

I'll order some wlp009 today. I'll also add a lot more hops.

This is some high dollar s$%t, I hope it goes well.

Why?????

I really can't understand why people keep trying to brew high alcohol beers that they really don't understand what the outcome is going to be. Would it be better to craft a beer that comes in around 10% first and try and perfect that before pushing higher. I would think that 10% would be about the limit, where different practices might need to be used.

I must confess that while I still don't really see any reason to brew anything above about 8%, I just did a Barleywine; currently at 1.018 from 1.100 (10.5%), and half of it will have oak and rum added which will take it to 12%. I expect to still have a lot of it come Xmas 2012.

Why?

Here are my reasons. I've brewed some up to 11% with good results so I want to try a really big brew. Everytime I try something new the outcome can come in question, now it's time to find out what I can do with this. I want to try something that will challenge me and the scientist in me sees this as exciting. Experimentation is fun.

I'm really looking forward to tracking the changes of the brew over the next several years. I can't get big stuff like this here in NC so I'll have to make it myself.

The 10% limit really is just an estimate - most all yeasts, when treated properly (i.e. nice healthy pitch from starter, yeast nutrient, plenty of oxygenation, etc.) will ferment a beer well beyond 10%, including 007. I brewed up a 13% wheat wine with this yeast no problem.

scottland said:

Use two pitches. Start with WLP007. Let that run it's course, you'll get like 10%+ then pitch a large amount of WLP099. You'll retain the flavor profile of the WLP007. Just keep the WLP099 under 70, and you'll be pleasantly surprised. And yes, oxygenate everytime you add more fermentables.

Oh, and add more hops. You need WAYYYYY more bitterness to balance this beer. I'll put it this way, I just made a DFH 120 minute clone (1.182 OG), and used 16oz of hops in a 5 batch. It's still unbalanced towards the sweet side, my pale ale is more bitter.

I would think you could get WLP007 and WLP099 combined to chew through an all malt 1.150 beer. You have the right idea of adding the fermentables slowly over time.

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yes and yes and yes. this guy knows what he's talking about. Wish I read this before I made my first barleywine.

What are the concerns about oxygenating fermenting wert? Is this bad?

passedpawn said:

yes and yes and yes. this guy knows what he's talking about. Wish I read this before I made my first barleywine.

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I just found scottlands 120 clone thread. That is some good stuff right there! It makes me feel much more confident on my first trip into super high gravity land. Now I'm just tweaking the recipe to dry it out a little more.

hartzie72 said:

What are the concerns about oxygenating fermenting wert? Is this bad?

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You typically don't want to oxygenate your wort beyond the point fermentation starts for fears of oxygenating the beer. Oxygenated beers have a stale cardboard taste to them. Ever tasted day-old beer from a keg that was tapped with a party tap? Tastes like wet paper/cardboard.

I feel it's not a concern for big beers like these with fermentables that are added incrementally. Everytime you introduce new sugar, there's going to be yeast growth, which means oxygen pickup.

Diverpat: I think this is definitely do-able. Even if you want to go with 100% malt, and no sugar. There was a BYO article awhile back where a guy made a 21% ABV barley wine with 100% malt. He used WLP099 from the start though, I'd recommend against that.

Good read: http://***********/stories/techniqu...ll-grain-brewing/51-21-alcohol-all-grain-beer

diverpat said:

I just found scottlands 120 clone thread. That is some good stuff right there! It makes me feel much more confident on my first trip into super high gravity land. Now I'm just tweaking the recipe to dry it out a little more.

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I am also in the planning stages of an X-treme OG brew. You may want to consider dropping your crystal altogether. You can add some Belgian Candy syrup dark/amber in its place upping the fermentability.

Mine will be 6 gal. and 1.215. I plan to make a 13 gallon 1.080 brew first and split it in half using wlp028 on one half and wlp099 on the other. I'll use these two cakes for my X-treme brew. I will let the wlp028 cake chew on 2-3 gallons of the concentrated wort first. Then, I will pitch the 099 cake. I too will be adding the wort incrementally. I will, however, take some of the second runnings (I will double sparge) and boil them to one gallon and OG of approx. 1.100. I will pitch the wlp 028 on this while I'm boiling my wort down. This way I will have a LOT of very active yeast (I believe the technical term is a "metric asston"). One option I'm considering (the safer option) is to can the wort. I will add a heavy dose of nutrient at the end of the boil and pre dose each jar with yeast energizer. Then, hit each addition heavy with o2 BEFORE adding to the ferment. I will also add a gallon of concentrated wort to the ferment emediately after boil/chill and aerate every 4 hrs for the first 24hrs.

I'm also toying with a slow drip method, but I don't know that I will go that route. I like to experiment and play witht the extremes too

Good Luck and Cheers!

Edit-
@Scottland: I just read your afterthoughts on your DFH 120 clone, after I posted this. It was very helpful, thanks. I was glad to see that my plan is going in the right direction, according to your experience.

Here is a gallery of photos of the progress of this beast. There are descriptions in the captions.

http://diverpat.imgur.com/big_barleywine#XlmUJ

So far things are going well. It's fermenting away nicely after 3 days, 2 wort additions, one caramel sugar addition, and about 10 cu ft of oxygen. 24 hours after pitching and each wort addition it is fermenting down to 1.050. Hopefully the WLP099 will be ready to pitch tomorrow (it's taking it's sweet ass time dropping out) along with a little more caramel sugar.

Noob question: how does the fan help accelerate boiloff? What's the theory there?

A second question: I'm planning to pitch a 1.090 winter warmer on to the yeast cake from a 1.033 mild. It'll be my first time trying anything like that. In your opinion, does a 1.090 beer qualify as a "big" beer, to the point where I'll need to concern myself with adding wort in stages, adding pure oxygen each time, and pitching additional yeast, either during fermentation or bottling? My hope was that with yeast nutrients, a healthy, fresh yeast cake, and a single pitch of aerated wort, my 1.090 warmer would get below 1.020 without any problem.

Calder said:

Why?????

I really can't understand why people keep trying to brew high alcohol beers that they really don't understand what the outcome is going to be. Would it be better to craft a beer that comes in around 10% first and try and perfect that before pushing higher. I would think that 10% would be about the limit, where different practices might need to be used.

I must confess that while I still don't really see any reason to brew anything above about 8%, I just did a Barleywine; currently at 1.018 from 1.100 (10.5%), and half of it will have oak and rum added which will take it to 12%. I expect to still have a lot of it come Xmas 2012.

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Simply put? Because we want to. It's all part of the fun of the hobby. It's the spirit of exploration and awesomeness all wrapped up in a really badass beer!

diverpat said:

Here is a gallery of photos of the progress of this beast. There are descriptions in the captions.

http://diverpat.imgur.com/big_barleywine#XlmUJ

So far things are going well. It's fermenting away nicely after 3 days, 2 wort additions, one caramel sugar addition, and about 10 cu ft of oxygen. 24 hours after pitching and each wort addition it is fermenting down to 1.050. Hopefully the WLP099 will be ready to pitch tomorrow (it's taking it's sweet ass time dropping out) along with a little more caramel sugar.

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That's a nice looking beer! Love that constant stream of yeast poo going into the blowoff!

I have done 12% with US-05/1056/WLP001.

I actually have a mead that I recently made using red star bread yeast from Costco that is currently sitting right around 15% ABV. This was helped along using staggered nutrient additions.

tonyolympia said:

Noob question: how does the fan help accelerate boiloff? What's the theory there?

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It helps keep the boil over down so I could boil more vigorously. I think it may also move nice dry cool air over the surface which will aid in evaporation.

diverpat: Looks awesome so far. You've definitely done all the leg-work in terms of making your yeast happy. Just avoid any big swings in temperature, and I think you'll have zero problem getting this to attenuate.

It's maintaining 65-66 degrees. I added the WPL099 this morning, I still have 2 more sugar additions to go. The air lock is slowing (a bubble/2 seconds) and the SG is down to 1.037, I'd like it to be lower at this stage but it doesn't have too much farther to go, I'm just being paranoid. I'm shooting for a FG around 1.022.

I would be more interested to hear what people have to say about getting good utilization when mashing so much grain than about fermentation. That's been my problem consistently on big beers.

Wernerherzog said:

I would be more interested to hear what people have to say about getting good utilization when mashing so much grain than about fermentation. That's been my problem consistently on big beers.

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parti-gyle. Mild = Son of Barleywine

How's this batch going?

It's going well. On Monday the SG was down to 1.025 making it right at 17.0%. I stopped adding sugar as I didn't want to keep pulling down the FG. The krausen has lowered, the SG is leveling and the bubbling is down to a minimum so I think fermentation is about done. I'll test the SG again tonight to find out.

Here is a graph the science nerd in me is keeping to follow the progress. The first two large spike are wort additions, the last three smaller are caramel and sugar additions. I added the WLP099 on day 3 with the first sugar addition. My first taste of it is hot alcohol and sweet which will hopefully blend together into something nice. I'll move it over into an aging carboy in 2 weeks.

Pretty rockin results! That should be a tasty brew once it has a little age on it. Congrats!

I was just listening to an old brew strong on high gravity (part 2 of the 4 part high gravity series) brewing this morning, and something palmer talked about was that barley starches aren't fully dissolved under 150F. So for that reason he said that you should consider doing a step mash at 145 and 155 for an all malt high gravity batch. He admitted that it's really only practical to do that, however, if you've got a direct fired mash tun.

just something to think about because I'd never heard that factoid about starch solubility sub 150.

To each his own but I don't know how anybody can drink a 1.150 beer..

dragonbreath11 said:

To each his own but I don't know how anybody can drink a 1.150 beer..

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You sip it. After about a year or two or three of aging.

Homercidal said:

You sip it. After about a year or two or three of aging.

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Besides the fun and experience of brewing it, the reason I did a big beer like this was too age it and watch/taste the changes over time. This one is not part of the pipeline, it gets set aside for several years.

I could see how it would be fun trying it every couple of months but a big beer like that no matter how long you age it, you will have a lot of hot alcohol in there.

Brewdog Tokyo is 18% and delicious! I think oak aging really helps bigger beers mellow. Don't have to use so much oak it changes the flavour but just a little. Also... time helps. I've got a bottle of Tokyo nearly 2 years old, going to see if I can make it to 5.

This. Looks. Awesome.

diverpat said:

Besides the fun and experience of brewing it, the reason I did a big beer like this was too age it and watch/taste the changes over time. This one is not part of the pipeline, it gets set aside for several years.

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I think you have inspired me to try brewing something like this at some point. Looks like you had a good plan and executed it well and the beer is coming out as expected. Always fun to have that happen. I've found that for me, a large part of the fun of homebrewing is coming up with a recipe and trying something different and seeing if it will work - which is why I currently have a beer made with local, wild yeast and another with 14% acid malt, wine yeast, Brett, and cranberries.

I hope you'll keep us all updated on this brew.

Just checked the SG, it is down to 1.021 and up to 17.5 abv. Target FG is 1.020 so things are looking good. I'm kind of stoked that I was able to get near, if not spot on, the FG. It was palatable on this sample. Earlier samples still had a lot of particulate matter floating around, mainly hops. It is starting to clear now.

One of the things I did learn in this is to filter the hops better post boil. I put the bittering hops in a bag and the rest straight in the wort. This stuff was so thick the hops didn't settle out during the 30 minute cool down after boil. Like insects in amber. It clogged my normal hops filtering colander in the first few ounces. I had to dump everything into the fermenter. If there is a next time, all hops will get filtered better. Now the surface of the carboy looks like the Gulf after BP had it's way with it, so much hops oil.

Homercidal said:

You sip it. After about a year or two or three of aging.

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My 1.150 OG RIS was incredible from the fermenter, and is only getting better. Granted I am a bourbon drinker, the alcohol does not show itself much. My buddy was also surprised, said he only noticed it when it got to room temp.

Caught this thread late but it sounds like everything went/is going well with yours.

To make this scientific though, he should compare against a batch that was just fermented with rehydrated EC-1118.. seems like a lot of effort for batches. I wonder if it really helps to do all those things.

If anyone is still following this thread, I am interested in the process of adding O2 well after fermentation begins. I am preparing a brew along these lines. Mine will have more sugar additions ala DFH120, but you don't seem concerned about oxidation. I was going to oxygenate the wort and the wlp099 starter, but once fermentation begins, I would be concerned about adding any more O2 to the fermenting beer.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

sfrisby said:

If anyone is still following this thread, I am interested in the process of adding O2 well after fermentation begins. I am preparing a brew along these lines. Mine will have more sugar additions ala DFH120, but you don't seem concerned about oxidation. I was going to oxygenate the wort and the wlp099 starter, but once fermentation begins, I would be concerned about adding any more O2 to the fermenting beer.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

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Don't add more O2 during fermentation. I think it encourages off flavors.

The book Yeast describes this clearly, but I don't remember it clearly. I think it was acetaldehyde / green apple taste.