Boiling with finished beer instead of water

I have been trying to think of a new idea in the world of homebrew and had a thought that I am interested in experimenting with. Also interested to hear of any thoughts/input HBT members might have as far what direction I should take with the first experimentation.

What I am looking to attempt is to use an already fermented beer in place of water during the boil. For experimentation sake, I would think starting off with an extract recipe first to keep things a simple for now would be ideal.

Wondering how a finished beer in place of water during the boil would affect the final flavor, body, and chemistry of the final outcome of this experiment. Since the alcohol from the original beer would be boiled off, that atleast wouldnt factor into the final beer. Besides that, I;m having a hard time trying to imagine any other issues to think about before hand.

Any thoughts on possible process or even beer styles to try to start with ?

Would be interesting as to how a pale ale (as the water for boil) might change the final outcome of a slightly hoppy brown ale recipe !??! Or even how IBU;s from the original recipe carry over to the new finished beer !?

Sounds... expensive. And unpredictable. You'd probably boil away most of the alcohol. Something wonky would happen with your existing hops and the utilization of your additional hops.

robbiex0r said:

Sounds... expensive. And unpredictable. You'd probably boil away most of the alcohol. Something wonky would happen with your existing hops and the utilization of your additional hops.

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Might be a decent alternative to dumping a batch of beer that might not have come out to your liking or thats been taking up space in your keg or carboy for too long... And yes, cost wise it wouldn't make sense when you first think about, but my intention isn't to invent a new way of making affordable homebrew with this experiment.

If the final outcome is of some major significance, homebrewers have their own discretion to go by whether its worth it or not. I think its an interesting concept that is worth discussing.

Just as you said, the hop utilization question brings up an interesting topic to think about... Maybe using less hops in the "secondary" boil recipe would be a smart decision for example.

I can't think of a worse use of beer. I'd rate using it for snail bait higher. All that will carry over is the bitterness, unfermentable sugars, and the color. Hop flavor, aroma and alcohol will boil off. Unfermentable sugars will further caramelize. Utilization and subsequent IBUs will be impossible to calculate. Instead of having two batches of drinkable beer, you'll have some horrible sludge.

But, it's your time, your money, and your beer. Have fun.

Hmmm. The alcohol will boil off as mentioned; before you added anything you would have a >1.000 gravity and the gravity would increase as the beer stock came to a boil; hop aroma/flavor would intensify; the original yeast would die. I think you would be boiling your extract in thin extract. What do the rest of think?

Susie

Green Flash's 'PALATE WRECKER' double IPA is brewed this way I believe.

http://www.greenflashbrew.com/our-beers.php

It seems like the boil pH would be lower than optimal, since finished beer has a pH of 4-4.5. You want your boil pH to be about 5.4. I don't know how much the extract would pull the pH up though. If the boil pH got too low the yeast might pull the finished pH down too low.

It'll probably cause cancer and destroy all your equipment shortly before exploding.

You could get your final preboil volume, run another 7 gallons through your tun again, then use that for your mash water on your next batch.

I've wondered about what would happen myself. Try it! Let us know! You could just use something light and water cheap like BMC and call it ascension.

You aren't the first person to think of this, or even try it. The idea has been around for at least the 15 years I've been brewing. The one person I know of who tried it said that the results ranged fron terrible to weird. Try it yourself if you like.

Do it. I say do it. Could be realy good. Try a small batch and see.

It would cause a time dilation paradox in subspace resulting in anti-mater particles entering our universe uncontrolled and ultimately end up in a total mater/anti-mater annihilation of the whole universe.

Soma said:

Green Flash's 'PALATE WRECKER' double IPA is brewed this way I believe.

http://www.greenflashbrew.com/our-beers.php

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They are using hopped wort to mash, not fermented, boiled beer.

david_42 said:

I can't think of a worse use of beer. I'd rate using it for snail bait higher. All that will carry over is the bitterness, unfermentable sugars, and the color. Hop flavor, aroma and alcohol will boil off. Unfermentable sugars will further caramelize. Utilization and subsequent IBUs will be impossible to calculate. Instead of having two batches of drinkable beer, you'll have some horrible sludge.

But, it's your time, your money, and your beer. Have fun.

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You know this from personal experience? I agree with the OP that it could possibly be used to re-purpose a beer that might otherwise get dumped. Further caremelization of unfermentable sugars might provide a more interesting flavor profile. Assuming the batch size of the original beer and the beer being brewed were the same, bitterness could easily be calculated by adding on the IBU from the original beer (hop bitterness doesn't get boiled off) to that of the new beer with utilization being a function of boil gravity. You'd have to do it on the fly after you take your boil gravity reading, but it could be done.

I agree with your point that the hop flavor, hop aroma and alcohol will get boiled off, but if a brewer chose to do something like this, they would be accepting these as justifiable casualties.

Also, I just want to make it clear that I am not saying you are wrong, I just don't think you are necessarily right, either. I'll be interested to see how this turns out if the OP (or anyone else for that matter) gives it a shot.

Here is a write up of an attempt at this.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/brewing-water-advice-70779/index4.html

Wow, BMC even. It's all been done before. See, this is exactly how things like mad cow disease get started.