High altitude brewing?

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Musketear

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I have spend my entire brewing life on the east coast, basically at sea level. but I am moving to the mountains and will be living at about 9,000 feet. I know this effects the temperature that water will boil, so will this change the way I need to brew?
 
Wow 9000ft? Where you moving to? just curious. Anyway, the only thing I can think of is that you should boil at about 194*(1 degree for every 500ft), so take that into account if you use boiling water to calibrate your therms. Not sure if oxygen levels would have bearing on your brews. Boil off rate might be different. I find this interesting, curious to see what you find out.:mug:
 
The lower boiling temperature will impact utilization, the isomerization process is slower. Not by much though. Simply boiling your bittering hops an extra 10 minutes will cover.
 
Mountain air is often kind of dry...might affect evaporation rate too by a bit.
 
As a high altitude brewer, the things I need to look out for:
1) Evaporation Rate - Don't know where you will be exactly, but here combined with the lower boiling temp and dry air, the boil off rate is pretty fast.
2) Hop Utilization - As outlined by david 42, a few extra minutes of the bittering hops (or a little extra, either in quantity or IBUs). This is just something you have to figure out by yourself with experience for the most part
3) Carbonation Levels. I need to use extra priming sugar when bottling to get the appropriate carbonation level. Not such a big deal if you keg. Another thing experience will help with, but there is a thread or two in the "Brew Science" forum that go into it more indepth.

Hope this helps. Welcome to the rarified air!
 
I'm at 7,000 feet as well - lower temp on the boil, but I haven't noticed anything else much different. I did have a carb issue that I thought was altitude related (competition beers at 1,200 feet and sea level were over carbed), but have come sense to realize I just added too much priming sugar.

Interesting comments about hop utilization - thanks for that info - I had an IPA that scored pretty low and the judges thought it may have been more appropriate as an APA even though it was was supposed to be ~65-70 IBUs
 
I'm at 6,250. We should start a group of high altitude brewers and call it the mile hile club. Anyway, I never brewed before I lived where I do so I don't know if it would be different. I can't see where having a lower boiling temp would make a difference. I do have a high boil off rate. I lose about 1.25 to 1.75 gallons per hour depending on the humidity or lack thereof.
 
I've heard a lot of stories about beers being under or over carbed if consumed at a greatly different elevation that they were brewed at.

I'm at 5500 ft and I haven't had any problems. Actually, the lower boiling temp is kind of nice. But I do tend to loose a lot of wort to evaporation. Maybe keep a gallon or two of bottled spring water available for make-up, just in case you come up short at the end.
 
I had a graph that showed the dependency of the isomerization rate on boil temperature, but I can't find it. I'm certain someone at OSU Fermentation Sciences could provide one, but I keep forgetting to ask when I'm down there. I remember being really surprised at what using a pressure cooker could do, even at +15 psi both the rate and maximum IBUs jumped.
 
Just to necro an almost dead thread and update the masses, here are my findings from Winter Park, CO. The main difference is in the bittering hops. The last PA and IPA that I made were barely bitter. The IPA can barely be considered an IPA, except for the fact that it was dry-hopped.

The evaporation rate does not seem to be too terribly different. I always have a few gallons of sterilized water on hand anyway.

I actually find the same amount of sugar is over-carbonating my beer, which makes sense with the PV=nRT equation. Halve the pressure, and the resulting volume is twice the original amount. Luckily I have kegs, so I can slowly bleed the extra pressure. I have had to significantly decrease my priming sugar.
 
Just to necro an almost dead thread and update the masses, here are my findings from Winter Park, CO. The main difference is in the bittering hops. The last PA and IPA that I made were barely bitter. The IPA can barely be considered an IPA, except for the fact that it was dry-hopped.

The evaporation rate does not seem to be too terribly different. I always have a few gallons of sterilized water on hand anyway.

I actually find the same amount of sugar is over-carbonating my beer, which makes sense with the PV=nRT equation. Halve the pressure, and the resulting volume is twice the original amount. Luckily I have kegs, so I can slowly bleed the extra pressure. I have had to significantly decrease my priming sugar.

Interesting.

Thanks for the update.

Eric
 
This is all very interesting to me as I am just jumping into homebrewing here in St. Louis, MO, but I am preparing to head out west to Durango, CO which is around 7500 ft. So, I guess I will have to do some experimentation when I get out there.

Another question....If I brew and bottle a beer here in STL, would there be any problems transporting the bottled beer to CO (gain in elevation of roughly 7500ft)?
 
Being a flat-lander (central California - actually 6 ft below sea level!) for all of my brewing days and just tried to brew my first batch at about 5600'. I was surprised by the lack of activity in my yeast starter. What have folks found with that? I am used to a very active started that gives me good foam and vigorous bubbles in the ferm lock. I had a few bubbles and consistent but minor bubbles coming up the side of the beaker. It had good smell so I don't think it was bad. Any thoughts? :confused:
 
I actually find the same amount of sugar is over-carbonating my beer, which makes sense with the PV=nRT equation. Halve the pressure, and the resulting volume is twice the original amount. Luckily I have kegs, so I can slowly bleed the extra pressure. I have had to significantly decrease my priming sugar.

Check out the link in my sig, contains some findings on how much less we should be carbing at high elevations. Basically, I have found you need to raise the psi by one every time you go up 2000ft.
 
Being a flat-lander (central California - actually 6 ft below sea level!) for all of my brewing days and just tried to brew my first batch at about 5600'. I was surprised by the lack of activity in my yeast starter. What have folks found with that? I am used to a very active started that gives me good foam and vigorous bubbles in the ferm lock. I had a few bubbles and consistent but minor bubbles coming up the side of the beaker. It had good smell so I don't think it was bad. Any thoughts? :confused:

I dont have an airlock on my yeast starter, but in my larger starters the fermentation is certainly visible, but only briefly. The smaller ones are not noticeable, or more likely, just too fast. This is consistent with lower elevation brewers.
 
once again, HBT has come to the plate, and delivered a lot of good information.
now, i have a related question, that may be easy to answer.
i think that it may have to do with altitude, but haven't seen anything here to confirm this, but:
i brew at ~7000ft asl, and apart from the said evaporation, i haven't met a lot of change from norm. there is one big thing that does give me a minute of pause...
gravities... when i brew, i usually add a pound or two of dextrose to raise the ABV, but when i am done with the boil (usually very close to directions in the box, as i usually do partial-mash box kits) my OG is a bit less than what it is 'supposed' to be..
for instance:
a couple days ago i brewed a 'Ruddle County Ale'.. and the OG was supposed to be 1.053... i had 1.046
can someone tell me why?
this is a recurring occurrence, and i suspect altitude.. as there is nothing else changed from the norm, apart from a pound of extra dex in the boil along with the extracts...
it is happily percolating away.. and apologies if i hijacked this thread...
 
As a life-long high-altitude brewer, I gotta call bunk on all of this.

Hop isomerization happens at 140F and up so the difference between a 212F boil and a 195F boil makes a nearly immeasurable difference in IBUs. Certainly less than what a human could taste.

Boil-off rate, while slightly greater at altitude, is far, far more impacted by pot geometry and the amount of energy going into the pot.

Carbonation, whether bottle or keg, is a closed system and has nothing whatsoever to do with altitude. Now once you pour a beer, it will go flat slightly faster due to lower atmospheric pressure, but that just means you need to drink quicker. :p

Everything else I've seen in this thread - starters, gravities, etc, would have nothing to do with altitude.

One of the local brew clubs out here likes to climb fourteeners in the summer and brew beers at the summit on camping gear. Works fine, every time.
 
ok, so it's not altitude..
any other ideas of what could be causing my worts gravity to be a couple ticks less than what it 'should' be?

p.s. i give it plenty of attitude....
 
Well this would explain why I boil below 200. All along I thought I had a crappy thermometer.
I guess I should have paid attention in high school. And college.
 
I'm searching the forum for some higher altitude brewing advice (I'm at 8750). I used to brew at sea level a million years ago and after that hiatus I am back at it. Twice now, using White Labs liquid yeast, I've had 4-7 day lag times for fermentation to start! I aerate well and pitch at appropriate temps, always warm my yeast several hours before & shake it like crazy too befor pitching ...any other high altitude brewers experienced this? (haven't had lags like this with dry yeast).
 
There is a formula out there that will let you calculate the decrease in hop utilization due to altitude. Just in Denver alone, I lose 20% of my IBU's.
 
Mb2658 said:
Are you making a starter for your liquid yeast?

I haven't, guessing I'm needing to, is it normal for yeast to take longer to start at altitude? Should I start the yeast a few days in advance based on what I'm experiencing?
 
tgmartin000 said:
There is a formula out there that will let you calculate the decrease in hop utilization due to altitude. Just in Denver alone, I lose 20% of my IBU's.

That is really interesting, I've definitely noticed that I'm not getting the flavor I expected.
 
abSchenk said:
I haven't, guessing I'm needing to, is it normal for yeast to take longer to start at altitude? Should I start the yeast a few days in advance based on what I'm experiencing?

You should make a starter regardless of altitude with liquid yeast. Make a starter next batch and watch how quickly it takes off.
 
jhoyda said:
You should make a starter regardless of altitude with liquid yeast. Make a starter next batch and watch how quickly it takes off.

This.
 
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