I need a Very High Alcohol, Very Low Final Gravity recipe

Hey everyone,

Looking for a recipe that gives me a very high alcohol and very low final gravity beer.

I'm thinking a Tripel will do the trick. I would like something in the 8% and on up area with the final gravity being below 1.010

Any ideas or advice would be much appreciated.

In my experience with high gravity beers this is quite difficult to achieve. I did have a Weizenbock that went from 1074 to 1014 which is 8%.

Why the need to go so low on FG?

Baron von BeeGee said:

Why the need to go so low on FG?

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Just a preference. I know its more difficult to achieve this but I like beers with a higher alcohol content that are more towards the dry end that are lighter in body. Thats why I was thinking about a Tripel.

Can I just add more sugar to up the alcohol and keep the body light?

You do that too much, you risk getting some off-flavors (or so they say, I like my beers full-bodied so I haven't played around with it too much). "Cidery." If the sugar is a modest percent of the total fermentables, it might be OK, but I'd be a little careful going this route.

Hey smart peeps - what about using candi sugar or something like that for this purpose? Invert sugars, I think, are better suited for this pupose than regular sugar.

Rice syrup

Try pitching a massive starter of White Labs WLP099, and after it's done, pitch some champaign yeast. No idea how that would taste, but it should get your FG pretty low...

You can definitely use sugar. I have a tripel fermenting that used 2lbs sugar, and about 11lbs grains. The OG was 1.080 or so, and I expect it to get down to 1.010 or below.

Some say that table sugar will give an off taste. You might try dextrose, Belgian candy sugar or making invert-sugar at home.

these options are all supposed to give you a result that doesn't have the "off" tastes of table sugar.

As debt man suggested you can add a higher attenuating yeast at the end of the process to increase the attenuation but keep much of the character of your initial yeast.

I'd also suggest trying some of the Belgian beers. If you find a commercial example of a beer your are trying to make it will be easier to get help tweaking it for your own goals because everyone will know where you want to start.

I'd also suggest reading through some of the mead data since many people making mead end up with a light body and high alcohol end product.

If you are looking for alcohol, mead is the way to go. 15 lbs. of honey, rehydrated champagne yeast, yeast nutrient, acid and water are all you need to hit about 10% alcohol. Don't even have to boil it. It won't taste good though, needs at least six months to mellow out.

i made a loganberry champagne that used 12 pounds of corn sugar. 1.120 starting gravity, .990 final gravity, 16% alcohol. No "off" flavors that I can tell.

Use a low mash temperature, like 145 or 146, use a ton of yeast and aerate the life out of that wort. Watch the crystal malt, maybe forget it all together. Use more hops then you think you should as well.

I brewed a belgian golden strong that sounds like it fits your description. As in the previous post use a low mash temperature (143F to 145F) for 90 to 120 minutes. I used 10 lb pils malt, 1 lb wheat malt (great head retention), 1 lb light candi sugar, and a 22 oz jar of Lundberg rice syrup from the healthfood store. Pitch a belgian high gravity yeast. Ferment in at least two stages at 70 F to 72F. It takes a long time to ferment this out, and it will ferment down to 1.010. Let it age in the bottle for at least 4 months. Pour, drink, fall down.

Brewpastor and lo_carboy, Excellent! I'll do that.


Vermicous, I'm not just looking for a high alcohol drink. I've made a couple meads that finished at 15% alcohol. Its the almost champagne like beers that I'm after.

Beeratier said:

Its the almost champagne like beers that I'm after.

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ummmmm... primary fermentation with a beer yeast, secondary with a champagne yeast!