OG on IIPA was a little high...1.115

Herky21 said:

If it is too sweet try oak aging. The wood should add some tannins and a drying mouthfeel. Usually work best in sweet beers anyways.

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Hmmm, that is an interesting idea. I've never used wood chips before, but since I am going to be bulk aging it already, it wwould certainly be easy to do in this case.

I racked it to secondary last weekend, and am now just waiting another 5 weeks before adding my dry-hop.

One problem is I still don't have a FG...I don't have a good graduated-cylinder to do gravity readings, and I obviously dont wat to plop the hydrometer into a carboy. Normally I take readings straight in the bucket, one right at pitching time, and then my FG after transfering to the bottling bucket...

I suppose I could transfer it from the carboy to a bottling bucket for the last month of aging...take my reading and if it is high, add wood chips/cubes. Or hell, maybe I will add the wood no matter what...are there any downsides to adding oak to an IIPA/Barleywine like this? Hell...I suppose I could even split the batch up and add wood to one, but not the other, so there can be a side-by-side comparison at the end, but that might be more work than I want to do, especially since I only have about 3g to start with.

Well if you add chips you only need a week or two. You could try taking a sample and adding a chip to it for about 15 minutes to see if the flavors meld. In tests that I've done, you can get a pretty good idea how the wood will taste when you are using small samples. The wood flavor can impart very quickly.

The downside to having an IPA with oak could be a too much perceived bitterness. As your's had such a high OG and presumably will have a high FG then this shouldn't be a problem.

Obviously, tasting it now will give you an idea as to whether or not it is too sweet for you. I see no downside in oaking, just make sure you sanitize and dont add too much. Subtlety, is the key. 1-2 oz. in a 3 gallon batch would probably be good. But again, a test in a glass of it may be a good start. The actual FG doesn't matter that much compared to the flavor, IMO.

What is the preferred method of sanitizing the wood? Boiling? If so is there any risk of boiling too long and removing flavoring compounds? Do you pull the boiled wood out and add, or just dump the boiled liquid in with the wood?

LowNotes said:

What is the preferred method of sanitizing the wood? Boiling? If so is there any risk of boiling too long and removing flavoring compounds? Do you pull the boiled wood out and add, or just dump the boiled liquid in with the wood?

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You can hit them with some quick sanitizer or my personal favorite, soak them in some whiskey and then dump into carboy

You could always put it on Brett. It will break down more of the unfermentables, and then eat them drying it up. It might add a funk but could be something fun to play with.

Chingis74 said:

You can hit them with some quick sanitizer or my personal favorite, soak them in some whiskey and then dump into carboy

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OOoooo, I like the soaked-in-liquor idea. Would whiskey be good with an IPA though, or would something with less flavor like vodka be better? I tend to pair whiskeys/bourbans with porters/stouts in my mind, but maybe that is just me not thinking outside the box. Are there any beers that pair well with rum? Spiced rum is probably my favorite liquor (I mostly stick to beer/wine though....all of my bad drunk experiences were from liquor) but I don't know if the spices will lend itself to beer. I guess there will be minimal flavors being imparted anyways...so it likely doesn't matter.

trojandux said:

You could always put it on Brett. It will break down more of the unfermentables, and then eat them drying it up. It might add a funk but could be something fun to play with.

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I have plans to do a sour beer soon, I think for this one I'll just live with the results and learn from it. It is my first IIPA so I want to try and see it through without making any radical changes.

That said if it is nasty after all my aging, putting it back in a bucket and tossing in some Brett might be a better alternative to tossing it all. This beer was damned expensive to brew.

I used spiced rum for a Breakfast stout and it came out well. I'm not sure how the flavors would translate for an IIPA. Non-spiced might work or a flavored vodka, like grapefruit, might fit well though. Just make sure you don't go overboard. I wouldn't use very much of any liquor personally. A little goes a long way.

Hmmm, flavored vodka might not be a bad idea if I see something at the store that should blend well. And I would only be adding a very small amount, in fact I would only soak the wood in it, and then add the wood chips, no actual liquid. So it is probably moot, but if I have to sanitize it anyways I figure it might be worth giving it a whirl.

Now I have a decision...drive 20 minutes each way to the homebrew shop...or order something online and pay for the shipping. I just placed a big order a couple weeks ago, so I don't need anything but wood. D'oh!

If you don't want the alcohol flavor and just the wood, I would just steam the cubes in a small amount of water in the microwave then dump the wood and water and all into the beer. This is a really good article that tells you a lot about wood aging: http://morebeer.com/content/using_oak_in_beer. It also tells you the best way to sanitize the wood. I would definitely give it a read!

Wow! Was that a recipe for 10G? Definitely going to follow this as it develops

Hehe, nope, it was actually for 4g since I couldn't get all that grain in my brew pot with my usual amount of strike water for 5g in the fermenter. There's a whole lot of sugar in that wort, that is for sure.

So I did a little reading of the BJCP style guidelines for English/American IPA/IIPA and English/American Barleywines, and based on what I read there I am now backtracking on using wood while aging, as wood flavors were specifically stated to NOT be part of the style. Normally, I am all for experimentation and don't care if something fits a specific "style" as long as it tastes good, but since this is my first foray into high gravity ale I am trying to get something close to the "official" taste as a benchmark. Also, based on what I read my beer will almost certainly fall into the American Barleywine category, which does allow for some hop flavor and bitterness, as opposed to the English Barleywine which is mostly malt influenced.

I need to double check the dates, but I think I will be adding my dry hop next weekend, and bottling 2 weeks after that. I'll try and take some photos on bottling day, and will definitely post my FG since that is really the big question mark for this beer. It has a really nice dark amber color right now, but that is about all I know about it!

Almost 20 lbs of grain plus corn sugar for a 3 gallon batch..man, my beers are child's play - this is hardcore! I think you're in QuadIPA territory - awesome!! KEep us posted

I'm a little late to the party here, but on carbing with swing-tops...

I have used a variety of swing tops with good, but not perfect, results. The long, thin German Altbier bottles, the more standard pint bottles, and 32oz swing top growlers. I have had great results with the two smaller sizes, but only batting around .600 with the big boys.

The reason is not the glass, nothing has broken on me, it's the seal itself. PSI spikes during bottle conditioning, as the yeast produces CO2 faster than can be absorbed back into the liquid. So for a period of time there, the pressure is quite high in the bottle, and the seal fails. The majority of the CO2 then escapes, leaving you with little to no carbonation returning to the liquid.

RukusDM did an experiment on it, which can be seen here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/bottle-carbing-idea-final-data-review-205862/

I would love to see how this turns out. I have an attempt at my first barleywine in the primary right now. OG was 1.2+ something. I was shooting for 1.100 and apparently over shot it by a little. lol.

Any updates?

No it has been in secondary for 1.5 months now. I meant to dry-hop it this past weekend, but got sidetracked with guests and gardening stuff and will be doing it tonight instead. 2 weeks on the dry-hop and then I am going to bottle it and age for 3 months. It has been a long slow brew, and I am dying for it to be ready...for now I am just happy that there are zero signs of infection, and the beer has a nice, fairly dark and rich color in the secondary.

I will definitely be posting an update on the FG when I bottle it, and try and throw a few pics together as well. I have been collecting more of the TJ's swingtops for bottling, and will eventually post results on carbing in those as well.

Oh, well I guess there is one sort-of update...

I checked my primary thermometer when doing a more recent brew, and I think it might have been off by 4-5 degrees in the high direction. I calibrated it against 2 other thermometers and it was about 4 degrees hot, so it is looking like my mash temp of 158* may in reality have been closer to 154*.

LowNotes said:

Oh, well I guess there is one sort-of update...

I checked my primary thermometer when doing a more recent brew, and I think it might have been off by 4-5 degrees in the high direction. I calibrated it against 2 other thermometers and it was about 4 degrees hot, so it is looking like my mash temp of 158* may in reality have been closer to 154*.

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Glad to hear this for your sake. Both for this beer and future brews. I'm looking forward to hearing how this monster does turn out. Thanks for the updates!

Another option could be to find a barrel used for wine and simply put your beer in it, then let it age for veeeeeeeery long time (a year?). Is something many professional brewers do in Italy, obtaining a lactic acid fermentation that dries and sours the beer, resulting with something similar to a liquorous wine like porto or marsala. Only need a used barrel, space, time and patience.

nucciocioccio said:

Another option could be to find a barrel used for wine and simply put your beer in it, then let it age for veeeeeeeery long time (a year?). Is something many professional brewers do in Italy, obtaining a lactic acid fermentation that dries and sours the beer, resulting with something similar to a liquorous wine like porto or marsala. Only need a used barrel, space, time and patience.

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Hehe, if I could get my hands on a real oak barrel I would jump at the chance, but I don't have the kind of funding to move above plastic buckets and carboys yet =) Maybe one day if my weekend hobby turns into either a "won the lottery hobby" (difficult since I have played twice in my life) or it turns into a "paid off the house and student loans and am about to retire hobby" (much more likely but at least 25-30 years off).

I am one of the few homebrewers that is still determined to get this hobby to save me money overall. My kit was a christmas gift, my brewkettles were originally steamer baskets for seafood that were a wedding present, my bro quit brewing so I got some extra buckets/gear that way, and I do BIAB so really I have spent very little on equipment. Most beers I try to only spend $20-30 for ingredients, although this one broke the bank a wee bit

All that said, I don't think I am going to even use oak for this bad boy. I actually used oak for the first time yesterday, I racked 5g of Denny's Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter, and decided that adding some oak to that brew would make more sense with the recipe. I steamed some Medium Toast Hungarian Oak Cubes in the microwave, and holy crap did it smell good! It reminded me sooooo much of some really nice wines my wife and I tried in Napa this past fall when we were on a trip for our anniversary. I was not expecting so much flavor/odor to come out so fast when steaming, it was powerful and made me start craving a good red wine. I will definitely be experimenting more with oak, but I don't think this monster is a good test subject.

Oh, also I hope this doesn't sound rude I certainly don't mean it to, but I can't imagine drinking Marsala for enjoyment. I can cook up a couple different marsala sauces that are super delicious, but the thought of drinking that stuff straight makes me cringe. Probably doesn't help that I don't like liqourice flavor.

I'm planning out a sour beer to start in the next 3-4 months that will take 18 months from brew date to first-pour, but faking the barrel flavors/beasties with oak cubes, pinot noir, and some mail-order beasties (Brett + a lacto/pedo belgian blend). It is the "Russian River Supplication" clone from the recipe section but I'll be doing AG instead of partial mash. Very detailed write up that includes info from the brewer and my mouth waters when I imagine the end result.

Sorry for the wall-O-text...I've got beer on the brain today

UnDeadly said:

I'm a little late to the party here, but on carbing with swing-tops...

I have used a variety of swing tops with good, but not perfect, results. The long, thin German Altbier bottles, the more standard pint bottles, and 32oz swing top growlers. I have had great results with the two smaller sizes, but only batting around .600 with the big boys.

The reason is not the glass, nothing has broken on me, it's the seal itself. PSI spikes during bottle conditioning, as the yeast produces CO2 faster than can be absorbed back into the liquid. So for a period of time there, the pressure is quite high in the bottle, and the seal fails. The majority of the CO2 then escapes, leaving you with little to no carbonation returning to the liquid.

RukusDM did an experiment on it, which can be seen here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/bottle-carbing-idea-final-data-review-205862/

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I meant to ask earlier...but if you are still checking in on this thread, are there any tricks to help get a better seal on a swing top? I'm wondering if there could be some kind of petroleum jelly type compound to put on the gasket to help give a good seal? Or maybe some sort of food-grade adhesive, or even just some sugar water or molassas or something to give it just a tiny bit more "sticking" power to keep those little CO2 molecules from bouncing out past the gasket.

LowNotes said:

Hehe, if I could get my hands on a real oak barrel I would jump at the chance, but I don't have the kind of funding to move above plastic buckets and carboys yet =) Maybe one day if my weekend hobby turns into either a "won the lottery hobby" (difficult since I have played twice in my life) or it turns into a "paid off the house and student loans and am about to retire hobby" (much more likely but at least 25-30 years off).

I am one of the few homebrewers that is still determined to get this hobby to save me money overall. My kit was a christmas gift, my brewkettles were originally steamer baskets for seafood that were a wedding present, my bro quit brewing so I got some extra buckets/gear that way, and I do BIAB so really I have spent very little on equipment. Most beers I try to only spend $20-30 for ingredients, although this one broke the bank a wee bit

[...]

Oh, also I hope this doesn't sound rude I certainly don't mean it to, but I can't imagine drinking Marsala for enjoyment. I can cook up a couple different marsala sauces that are super delicious, but the thought of drinking that stuff straight makes me cringe. Probably doesn't help that I don't like liqourice flavor.
[...]

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Well, I understand it could be quite difficult to get hands on a real barrel, as I don't know how is the wine production around you, in Italy everybody does wine, and they need to change their barrels from time to time, so it 'isn't such an economic problem here, that's why I suggested.

About drinking marsala, or some beer tasting similar to marsala, it is certainly something you can't do in pints, that's for sure. I come from Sicily which is the homeland of marsala wine, and we use to drink it in small quantities, pairing off some cake, at the and of a good dinner. The most famous craft beer producer in Italy made a trademark in doing this "liquorous-winous" beers, and as is an expert in marketing he sells it as "meditation beers, good to drink solwly beside a fireplace".

I mash my IIPA at 154 and it has a nice mild sweetness to it. Not to cloying. My standard IPA I mash at 149-150 and add a little honey. I like it dry and hopppy.

LowNotes said:

I meant to ask earlier...but if you are still checking in on this thread, are there any tricks to help get a better seal on a swing top? I'm wondering if there could be some kind of petroleum jelly type compound to put on the gasket to help give a good seal? Or maybe some sort of food-grade adhesive, or even just some sugar water or molassas or something to give it just a tiny bit more "sticking" power to keep those little CO2 molecules from bouncing out past the gasket.

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You can buy replacement gaskets. New gaskets should work flawlessly. Also ensure your bottle lip is clean.

How has the beer turned out?

Travestian said:

You can buy replacement gaskets. New gaskets should work flawlessly. Also ensure your bottle lip is clean.

How has the beer turned out?

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Cool, the gaskets look good, perfect in fact. I still need to de-label the bottles, but I have about 20 of the Trader Joes flip-tops now and am still planning on using them. It sounds like most people haven't had any issues with this type of bottle/top.

The beer is still in secondary, but I am planning to bottle it this weekend. I dry hopped it 6 days ago. 2oz each cascade and centennial, I had originally planned on 14 days, but sort of forgot to put it in until later than planned, so now it will be more like a 8-9 day dry hop, but it seems like most people don't recommend the full 2 weeks anyway.

When I bottle it I can finally take my FG reading, so I am pretty excited. I won't be tasting the final product until about 2 months have passed, and ultimately I wasn't really expecting it to be ready until about 3 months in bottles.

Bigger beers tend to take longer to carb up too so you'll be looking at a bit for that whole process. I'm curious how low your gravity is/high your abv is.

Bottled this last night finally after 12 days on my dry hop. After my trub loss (lots of hops left in the secondary) I only ended up with 2.5g in the bottling bucket, which is a lot less than I expected.

I finally found my FG: 1.038

Not too bad, in fact it comes in at exactly 10.0 ABV which is what I have been using as my expected ABV when telling people about it. It will be pretty sweet and malty, but that was to be expected. It looked and smelled great. I took some photos, I'll try and upload them later this week. First bottle will be opened up around 7/15/13, I was able to fill 16 of the 500mL swing tops I had, plus 1 22oz bomber and 2 12oz bottles.

Wow that's a high FG. REALLY high. I hope it doesn't find to be too sweet.

Travestian said:

Wow that's a high FG. REALLY high. I hope it doesn't find to be too sweet.

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I hope they don't explode.

Herky21 said:

I hope they don't explode.

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It did finish high, but my experience with beers this big is that you're only going to get 80 gravity points or so, and he's at 77 so I seriously doubt they're going to explode. The beer could very well be cloyingly sweet though...

Interestingly, look at the 3rd post of this thread:

iowabrew said:

The fact that you mashed so high might not help your attenuation much.

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jbaysurfer said:

It did finish high, but my experience with beers this big is that you're only going to get 80 gravity points or so, and he's at 77 so I seriously doubt they're going to explode. The beer could very well be cloyingly sweet though...

Interestingly, look at the 3rd post of this thread:

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I saw that too. I'm sure there's a lot more residual sugar given the 158 mash. I'm just guessing that the yeast may have puttered out toward the end too, depending on the starter size and the steps taken to oxygenate etc. In any case, I'd have to enter it into beersmith to get an estimation of the FG at that mash temp with those ingredients. I'd bet it should be a bit lower than it is and that some of the sugars will contribute to carbonation - it will also, be very sweet, or at least have a big malt backbone, I'm sure.

Herky21 said:

I saw that too. I'm sure there's a lot more residual sugar given the 158 mash. I'm just guessing that the yeast may have puttered out toward the end too, depending on the starter size and the steps taken to oxygenate etc. In any case, I'd have to enter it into beersmith to get an estimation of the FG at that mash temp with those ingredients. I'd bet it should be a bit lower than it is and that some of the sugars will contribute to carbonation - it will also, be very sweet, or at least have a big malt backbone, I'm sure.

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Agreed. I'm sure BS would say it's supposed to finish 8 pts or so lower, but I find my BS to always calculate finishing gravities a couple pts lower then what I tend to get in practice and always calculate IBUs a couple pts higher then what I get in practice. But I agree it should be a bit lower then what it is now...and it's likely to be very sweet. The one thing the OP has going for him on that front is the fact it was designed as an IIPA to start with, so now it may actually be a sweet barleywine...and possibly not too cloying.

That said, the only beer I've done that came out that high on OG was a Belgian Dark and it was indeed VERY sweet. It finished at 1.030 which was right about what BS said it should finish at. I did that recipe again, cut back on the basemalt a bit and added corn sugar at the end of the boil to hopefully dry this batch out a bit more. I also mashed it lower....at 154, and added a couple of IBUs. It's fermenting now..

Well, I tried the first of these over the weekend. It was...okay.

Almost well balanced, but as predicted there was a little too much sweetness, which seemed to increase as I continued to drink. The aroma was nice, and for 10% ABV there was surprisingly little alcohol taste/smell. Plenty of bitterness plus hop flavors, overall not bad, but not exactly what I was hoping for. Nice dense head, but not too foamy by any means. It was a good beer for sipping.

I will probably let most of them age a bit longer, although part of me is thinking about pouring about half the bottles back into a fermenter and tossing some Brett onto it in an attempt at reducing the sweetness. I'm going to have a couple other people try them and see if they taste the same things I do, it is possible it is worse than I think, but that I am blinded by my own wish for it to turn out good.

Soooo, not a total loss, but not exactly living up to expectations is where this beer is at now.

Thanks for posting an update on this. It does seem interesting to do a sour experiment with these. However I'm uncertain as to the oxidation possibility with Brett doing it's thing while pouring the beer back into a fermenter. Thoughts or more research?

I can't say that I read this entire post but wouldn't it have been easiest to just boil up 2 more gallons of water and, after cooling it, add it to the carboy in half or quarter gallon increments till you brought your OG down to where you wanted it?

Lownotes didn't know for sure if his mash temp was off. Adding water could have fixed nonexistant problems.

Watering down the gravity would also water down the IBUs and aroma so its kind if tough to say that wouldve "fixed" this DIPA.

in for updates

iluvmysh said:

in for updates

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Well, I have been sidetracked and haven't brewed or even really read/planned anything for the last 4 months, BUT I actually just finished the last bottle of this last night.

It remained sweet, which was too be expected, but it was good for sipping and after a bit more aging I think the flavors did improve. The carbonation definitely got better and ended up exactly where I like it, no bombs but a nice sitisfying *pop* when opening the flip-tops. The hop flavors and aromas remained surprisingly strong even after all the aging. I was expecting those to fade quickly based on what I read, but they stayed strong and might have been my favorite aspect of the beer. It definitely helped balance the sweetness.

All in all, I ended up enjoying it more than I expected after the first tasting, but if I had to do it all over again I would definitely fix the mash temp to be lower. I may be done with attempting huge beers for the time being though, a lot of work/waiting for a relatively small amount of decent beer...I am glad I did it for the experience, but I think I will stick to my more tried-and-true recipes when I do get back into brewing here soon. If I start to feel like experimenting I will probably try a sour beer instead.