Vanilla Bourbon Dubbel

So I just brewed a Vanilla Bourbon Dubbel a few days ago, and now it's in the carboy, with a nice krausen which is starting to wear off, and an active airlock. I was pleased with brew day and everything! Ended up hitting the two gallon mark exactly on my carboy. And I've got a question about gravity and ABV. Before I pitched the yeast, the gravity read at exactly 1.060. What kind of ABV should this give me? On the hydrometer it says around 8% potential ABV, but would that be if it fermented all the down to 1.000?

I guess it would all depend, ido extract if I run a og of 1.060 then a fg of 1.013 or so i end up with a tad bit above 6%abv.

luke_d said:

And I've got a question about gravity and ABV. Before I pitched the yeast, the gravity read at exactly 1.060. What kind of ABV should this give me? On the hydrometer it says around 8% potential ABV, but would that be if it fermented all the down to 1.000?

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Yes, you are right in thinking that the potential Alcohol scale equates to the brew attenuating to 1.000. I can't be sure what your brew will attenuate to but if your starting gravity reading is 1.060 Then, on the same scale, when you reach and record your final gravity, say for example 1.016, then you can approximately calculate the ABV By using the formula (OG - FG) * 131

So,

(1.060 - 1.016) * 131= 5.78

Then add a couple of points for carbonation so you'd be somewhere in the 6.0 to 6.1% ABV range,,,,,,,,,,,,,, roughly

Cool! Sounds easy enough. Although I'm interested...what does the 137 stand for?

luke_d said:

Cool! Sounds easy enough. Although I'm interested...what does the 137 stand for?

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LMAO,,,,,,,,, I honestly haven't good a bloody clue:fro: It's a bit like the C in E=MC2, except it isn't the speed of light

Haha okay well thank you anyway for the conversion equation!

Another question! I'm adding the bourbon and oak chips an vanilla bean to the secondary, so if my beer is a two gallon batch, how much of the bourbon should I put in? The recipe calls for almost a whole 750ml bottle of Maker's Mark but that seems like a lot for just two gallons of beer.

luke_d said:

Haha okay well thank you anyway for the conversion equation!

Another question! I'm adding the bourbon and oak chips an vanilla bean to the secondary, so if my beer is a two gallon batch, how much of the bourbon should I put in? The recipe calls for almost a whole 750ml bottle of Maker's Mark but that seems like a lot for just two gallons of beer.

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That sounds like a LOT for just two gallons of beer. For 5 gallon batches of a bourbon porter, I use 16 oz of whiskey, so your recipe calls for 1.5 times as much as my recipe, when your recipe is 1.5 times smaller than my recipe! The resulting beer that you'd get would be VERY strong and alcoholic tasting... If I were you, I'd start with 10 oz of bourbon and see what it tastes like, then add more to taste if you desire.

Thank you so much! It seemed like a lot but I wasn't sure.

They type of yeast will affect your final gravity for a given recipe. Beers typically will be between 1.010 and 1.020. Wines will typically ferment to 1.000 or slightly below. On high gravity beers, there is also a potential of alcohol content affecting the yeast...this in addition to the attenuation potential of the yeast. Once you finish fermenting, you'll know where you stand for your current batch.

For blending, you can start small and make additions to taste, as mentioned. If you are looking for a target ABV, or tracking your additions, you can use the following formula:

% ABV of blend = (AxD)+(BxE)/(D+E)

where

A=ABV of first liquid (Beer)
B=ABV of second liquid (Bourbon)
D=volume of first liquid (Beer)
E=volume of second liquid

Just keep your units alike, eg, 5.2 % ABV, 40 % ABV, 5 gallons, .25 gallons.

luke_d said:

Thank you so much! It seemed like a lot but I wasn't sure.

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No problem! Let us know how the recipe turns out and how much bourbon you ended up using in the end.

Alright! So for adding my oak and bourbon, I was going to use a secondary. However, I don't have another three gallon carboy so I was thinking this would be my process:

1. Siphon beer from carboy into sanitized bucket.
2. Clean out carboy and sanitize.
3. Put oak and bourbon into carboy.
4. Rack beer from bucket back into carboy.
5. Put in stopper and airlock and let it finish up.

Would that work? In terms of sanitization and avoiding oxidization?
Also, Since it's only two gallons in a three gallon carboy, is that too much headspace for secondary fermentation? I've read up but found mixed reviews.

Please tell me your thoughts!

Personally, if it were me, I'd try and find a way to just add the bourbon and oak into the carboy without splashing/aerating. Seems like your idea means a lot of work to do and an increase in the risk of oxidisation or infection. Is having the trub still in there going to make any difference to the flavours imparted by those additions?

On a seperate thread, someone told me that the yeast might interfere with the oak and the flavors may not come out as hoped.

This may be a really stupid idea, as I've never tried what you're doing so have no experience, but if you've figured out how much oak and bourbon you're going to use, couldn't you divide them up into required amounts and then using it to bottle??

That way you don't have to worry about too much headspace in your carboy, which as it stands now wouldn't be too much of a problem due to the CO2 on top, but racking it out of there to another vessel, then back in again you'd have no CO2 for protection, quite a large headspace and prospects for inviting infection.

Just realized that you only want to leave the oak in until you reach the levels of flavour you were after then rack off it.

Short of getting another 3 gallon, or slightly smaller, carboy I don't know what to suggest.

I just solved the problem! Don't know why I didn't do this before. I should've relaxed, not worried, and had a homebrew. I just ordered two one gallon carboys! I'm going to do half in one, and half in the other, with different amounts of bourbon and to experiment. Yay!

Ogri said:

Yes, you are right in thinking that the potential Alcohol scale equates to the brew attenuating to 1.000. I can't be sure what your brew will attenuate to but if your starting gravity reading is 1.060 Then, on the same scale, when you reach and record your final gravity, say for example 1.016, then you can approximately calculate the ABV By using the formula (OG - FG) * 137

So,

(1.060 - 1.016) * 137= 6.03

Then add a couple of points for carbonation so you'd be somewhere in the 6.25 to 6.3% ABV range,,,,,,,,,,,,,, roughly

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Isn't the formula (OG-FG) * 131? Not 137?

I'm a newbie so I just wanted to be sure I'm plugging in the right numbers.

BayAreaBrew said:

Isn't the formula (OG-FG) * 131? Not 137?

I'm a newbie so I just wanted to be sure I'm plugging in the right numbers.

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Oops. Sorry about that!! Yes, you're right. Thanks for catching that. Think I gleaned my figures from another thread and didn't bother checking elsewhere but after checking Wikipedia and another couple of threads on here it appears I was mistaken.

Ogri said:

Oops. Sorry about that!! Yes, you're right. Thanks for catching that. Think I gleaned my figures from another thread and didn't bother checking elsewhere but after checking Wikipedia and another couple of threads on here it appears I was mistaken.

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You should edit your first post with the correct info, so that doesn't happen to the next person (that would have been me, if I didn't read all the way through ).

TJinWV said:

You should edit your first post with the correct info, so that doesn't happen to the next person (that would have been me, if I didn't read all the way through ).

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Done.

Although, as I mentioned, from what I gather it's not an absolutely accurate way to calculate ABV. Merely a ballpark figure.

Thanks for all the input!

I figured out what I'm gonna do:
Since I've got two gallons of beer, I'm going to be racking the beer into two separate one gallon carboys. A perfect opportunity for experimenting! I'm only going to do oak, bourbon, and vanilla in one carboy, just so I can compare the two.

That being said, would this brown ale be a good beer to dry hop? I know dry hopping mainly is for aroma and is commonly used in IPAs, but do you guys see it as a good opportunity for dry hops? An if you do, which type of hops?

Thanks!!

Hey so do you guys think it would be a good idea to dry hop half of this batch?