Just curious about ABV

If the ABV seems just a bit to high, what's the best way to lower it by 1 maybe 2% abv when the brew is at the bottling bucket stage to get just a bit more flavor? Just curious. Thanks for any tips

Not sure there's much you can do at this point. If you keep a close eye on the O.G. when the boil is done (or better yet, efficiency before you start the boil), you could top off to water it down. I wouldnt do anything now, though you could still top off if you want. Dont know how it would turn out though, you'd lose flavor. Why do you want to lighten the ABV?

RainyDay said:

Not sure there's much you can do at this point. If you keep a close eye on the O.G. when the boil is done (or better yet, efficiency before you start the boil), you could top off to water it down. I wouldnt do anything now, though you could still top off if you want. Dont know how it would turn out though, you'd lose flavor. Why do you want to lighten the ABV?

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I brewed a holiday ale with some different spices. The beer is acutely not that bad at all. It's at a 7% abv. I get a taste of cinnamon, vanilla and honey and of course alcohol. The OG was higher then estimated at 1.066 the reason for the higher abv but I'm not complaining about that. Just really curious about bring out just a little more flavor I guess

Let it age. As it ages, a higher ABV brew will [typically] become less "hot" and the flavors will come out from hiding. How long that takes depends on the recipe, ABV, conditions, how long in primary, yadda, yadda, yadda...

The only ways I know of to reduce the alcohol content are diluting and boiling off the alcohol (like distilling, but backwards). I don't know that either is likely to work, although if your high ABV is because you got everything in the wort over-concentrated (including the spices), you could try dilution with water.

Do it with a small amount first--take something like 100 mL and add about 15 mL water to drop it to 6% or 30 mL to drop it to about 5.5%. I'd mix that up and let it sit for a while (I'm thinking a week or so) and see what you think. If you like it, you could try it to the whole batch in the same proportion. Note that this is also going to lower your FG by the same dilution proportion (so if you were at 1.013, you'll be at around 1.010) so you'll get a thinner-bodied beer as well.

Note that I haven't tried this, and I think it's probably not going to give you a great result. It'll be diluting the flavor by quite a bit. But if you really need to drop the ABV, it's a way to do it. It wouldn't hurt to do the small test, in any case. Blending with a lower ABV beer of a similar profile would be more likely to be successful, but that'd mean making more of it. If it were me, I'd follow the advice above and just live with it.

Just let it age. I made a 12% abv ice wine in the spring and at first taste it was "hot" as they say, like taking a shot of liqeur but a little less intense. After aging 6 months most of the hotness has went away, and you can really taste the subtle favours.

You can always just enjoy it the way it is and at 7% your guest will be giggling in no time and your holidays will all be smiles and laughter ...

Big_Cat said:

You can always just enjoy it the way it is and at 7% your guest will be giggling in no time and your holidays will all be smiles and laughter ...

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Depending on your guests, be sure to have at least a video camera on standby (or have someone set to record antics)... That way, when you talk about what they did, and they deny it (memory loss) you can show them each and every detail, in slow motion during the 'good parts'...

Golddiggie said:

Depending on your guests, be sure to have at least a video camera on standby (or have someone set to record antics)... That way, when you talk about what they did, and they deny it (memory loss) you can show them each and every detail, in slow motion during the 'good parts'...

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Lol

Golddiggie said:

Depending on your guests, be sure to have at least a video camera on standby (or have someone set to record antics)... That way, when you talk about what they did, and they deny it (memory loss) you can show them each and every detail, in slow motion during the 'good parts'...

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That's funny. There is always someone passed out in the bathroom floor to when I throw a party. I will decently have a video camera handing when the start drinking my 7% abv holiday brew! Haha

Golddiggie said:

Depending on your guests, be sure to have at least a video camera on standby (or have someone set to record antics)... That way, when you talk about what they did, and they deny it (memory loss) you can show them each and every detail, in slow motion during the 'good parts'...

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Stupid typos above with the iPhone. Anyways, good times! Ha

wesw801 said:

Stupid typos above with the iPhone. Anyways, good times! Ha

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Time to see how many skips that phone will do on a clear lake. Or test the 'Gorilla glass' strength. Think it can take a hit from a hammer?

Thanks for everyone's responses. I decided to not mess with my brew and leave it at the 7% abv and bottled it this morning. After two weeks in primary and two weeks in secondary it tasted pretty darn good even with the extra alcohol. I'm shore I will be very pleased with the results once carbonated and I can't complain about a higher abv!

Cheers