Concerned, alchohol content too high?!?

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Mike-H

Mike-H

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My beer has been fermenting for 5 days. I am brewing AHS American IPA II. I never got a chance to take an OG reading due to breaking my hydrometer right before I was going to take the reading :( Anyways, I just took out a little of the beer to taste it as it is still bubbling. The sampling smelled strong of alchohol, very strong. I am expecting 7% + a little more, but, 7% beer does not smell of alchohol like this did. I used 8 lbs ale malt and their 1% alchohol boost. Is this normal?
 
AHS's website says it's a 6% abv beer with an OG of 1.060.

I can't explain why it would smell so strongly of alcohol, but at 1.060, it's going to be bubbling for a good week before it finishes.

-walker
 
Alcohol content is too high? Shoot, I don't know whether to give you advice or congratulate you. :drunk:
 
Don't worry about it. Beer's with that kind of OG need time to mature before the alcohol 'integrates' into the overall flavour. It will dissapate eventually.
 
You could be smelling fusel alcohols if your ferment temp was to high? I think your just smelling a "young" beer. Have a sip of her, she won't be young forever...
 
Don't worry about getting too much alcohol. The yeast you use in beer will die around 8%. If you want to go higher than that you need to get special yeast that can survive in higher alcohol contents.

You can add all the sugar you want but using normal yeast you just cant get the alcohol content any higher without special yeast. If you add too much sugar and the yeast die when the alcohol content gets to 8% then you will have a lot of left over sugar and you will have a sweet beer.
 
shrek_vt said:
Don't worry about getting too much alcohol. The yeast you use in beer will die around 8%. If you want to go higher than that you need to get special yeast that can survive in higher alcohol contents.

You can add all the sugar you want but using normal yeast you just cant get the alcohol content any higher without special yeast. If you add too much sugar and the yeast die when the alcohol content gets to 8% then you will have a lot of left over sugar and you will have a sweet beer.
Click to expand...


What the heck?


Whit Labs has 33 ale yeasts listed on their website and 13 of them are Medium-high or above. "Normal Yeast" what does that mean?

Alcohol Tolerance Table:
Very High: Over 15%
High: 10-15%
Medium-High: 8-12%
Medium: 5-10%
Low: 2-5%
 

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