21% All grain brew.

Williams 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
The Boil started at 3:44 PM almost 3 hours ago. and it is evaporating at a rate of about 3L/hour I have about 27 liters in each kettles and need to bring them to 16 before combining them. So about another 3h and 40'. then another couple of hours before reaching the end of the boil. 8H boil that is crazy. I will take a gravity sample after 4 hours.
 
Got a bit of Drama here, the heating element of one of the kettels gave up before the 4th hour of boil. I dumped all the wort into a fermenting bucket and cleaned it but, it didn't work and the heating element is dead. It was covered by sugar and underneath the first layer it was completely black. See picture after a bit of scrubbing.

So I'm left with one kettle that is probably fail too. I have put some of the wort from the failed kettle and top off the other one. I'll take it as far as I can take it.

I measure the gravity of the wort and it is only at 1.092. There was a strange thing in the bucket and you can see some to it from the sample.

The wort is really sweet and the strange thing at the bottom does not have much taste.

Edit: Found another heating element and the second kettle is now brewing again. Down to 43 liters 18 to go.

photo2.jpg


photo3.jpg
 
The back up heating element has failed too, it lasted less than an hour. The other kettle is still working fine. I decided to add the hops so if it fails then I still have a beer and not a bunch of hopsless wort.

The OG is now up to 1110.

I can for the most part filter those weird thing with a hops bag.
 
One hour left in the boil. The latest sample is at 1026 OG. It is getting darker and sweeter. I'm not going to get the OG i was hoping for. Oh well. Hope I can still make of it a good beer. It has been boiling for almost 9h now, all but 6 liters of the original 70 have gone in the final kettle. Can't be bothered at this point to wait to more hour to boil it all.

Wonder if there is any fermentable left in it.
 
You did a 9 hour boil? It must be like syrup at this point. Interested in seeing how this turns out. Good luck!
 
9 and 1/2 actually. At the end I had 22 liters left and the OG was 1134. Very dissapointed. Let's put this one in the experiment category.
It is 3 am and I started at 1pm yesterday. It was a long brew day to say the least. Well at least I have monday off.
Now let see how it ferment.
 
Got to give you credit where credit is due! You are a man of great patience. Hope it still turns out in the end.
 
Well good news the beer is fermenting nicely. It has a healthy inch thick krauzen and is happily bubbling away.

Learned a few things yesterday.
- Don't do this with an electrical kettle, I destroyed 3 heating elements
- Need a system that evaporates faster. 3 Liters an hour make the boil so long that funny stuff develloped during the boil ( you can see it in my hand below) I was able to filter most of it away. I did not use pellets and the hops where in a muslin bag as I didn't have a hop strainer on the good kettle. That stuff showed up way before the first hop addition.
- Do a smaller volume, less volume => shorter boil time.

If I ever get my hands on a gas set up with a proper evaporation rate I would try it again without hesitating.

Now that my experiment failed, I wonlder if I should add some brewing sugar and go for gold. I really need to get the 20% abv beer out of my system.

As for the taste and texture. It was really sweet and a little syrupy but not too thick. I'll take a gravity sample tomorrow and see how it change.

I'll wait for the wlp 001 thrub to pitch the wlp099.

Any bets on the final gravity?

photo4.jpg


photo5.jpg


photo6.jpg
 
One trick:

Buy a lees stirrer or other stirrer. I used one that is intended for plaster or something, cleaned it and sanitized. Since you're fermenting in a bucket, pop the top and use this mixer on a drill to aerate and degas the wort. Start slow with it as the CO2 will cause foaming. You might not have enough head space to do it properly, it could foam over, so be careful. You can do this a few times per day until you reach 1/3 sugar break. Your gravity was 1.132? 1/3 sugar break would be 1.087. This will get the CO2 out of solution, which makes life easier on the yeast AND will get some air in there for them as well.

I did this with a strong Belgian recently using Wyeast 1214. I went the route of adding sugar in the form of honey into the fermenter to step up the gravity, though. That said, the beer went from an estimated 1.131 down to 1.014 or so just in primary, ~15.8% abv, without adding any additional yeast. I'd assume it may be down to 1.012 by the time I bottle it, so might hit 16%.

I used a 55 liter fermenter for 20 liters of wort and would estimate that it foamed up to about twice its volume, so 40 liters, but I was using the drill on super high speed once I eased into it.

All that and the beer actually tastes good!

;-)

Best of luck. It's all down to fermentation management now.
 
Interesting, I have never heard of this process. I'll be looking into that.
 
That weird stuff looks like gluten to me, but I may be totally wrong. It's basically just protein; not surprising you got so much with that grain bill.

Seriously, good effort man. Sorry it didn't work out, but you definitely gave it your all.
 
never seen so much gluten, would it have hurt the beer if I left it in it?
 
I really like the idea, but I don't have the headspace to let it build up much foam. I assume that you could do this several time or do you do it just one at the beginning of fermentation?
 
Akavango said:
I really like the idea, but I don't have the headspace to let it build up much foam. I assume that you could do this several time or do you do it just one at the beginning of fermentation?
Click to expand...

With that beer, I degassed twice a day until 1/3 sugar break. With that beer, which fermented fast for being so strong, that was 2 days after brew day. Finished brewing on a Sunday afternoon, degassed that night, then twice Monday, twice Tuesday and that was it.
 
I did a gravity check on yesterday morning and it was down to 1094. I aerated, added some beano and kg of sugar. Bringing the Og to 1150. Checked it again today and it is at 1090. I will picth the wlp 99 tomorrow morning and we will see.

Would be very surprised if gravity fall much lower, I think that there is a lot of unfermentable as predicted by some of you.

Unfortunately Matt idea while interesting is out of the question for budgetary reasons. I don't have a drill and was unable to find the lees stirer In ireland or UK.

It does taste very sweet and not as thick as it was after the boil.
 
I guess a lot of unfermentable happened after the 9 1/2h boil. I have dumped more beano and the wlp99 this morning but didn't check gravity.
Wish i wasn't working this week end to check the hardware store for it.
Thanks Matt.
 
Akavango said:
I guess a lot of unfermentable happened after the 9 1/2h boil. I have dumped more beano and the wlp99 this morning but didn't check gravity.
Wish i wasn't working this week end to check the hardware store for it.
Thanks Matt.
Click to expand...

Best of luck.

My approach to this whole thing is to eventually work my way up in strength, just for kicks. I've done a TON of beers in the 10-12% range, then this one where I was aiming for 15% but got closer to 16%. That was for my 15 year brewing anniversary. I figure sometime maybe in a year or so I'll aim a bit higher and gradually work my way upwards. I think it's good to do that way as you learn a lot about the super high gravity brewing process, what works, what doesn't for technique and recipe, etc etc etc and it can lead to a beer that is both strong and drinkable rather than just a very strong beer that tastes like crap.

Anyway, let us know how it works out.
 
I have done the other method to built up a beer after you brew it by adding sugar. I have a dogfishead 120 ipa in the primary. I think that in the future with the set up I have this will be the way to go. I have done my share of strong beers myself. So far the strongest I bottle is at 13.3%. I aged it for 2 months in primary then another 2 months in the secondary with american oak. This is the second time I made it and it turned out even better the second time. That beer is a real jewel.

I thank you for taking the time to offer some advice.
Btw with the wlp 99 the beer is bubbling vigoursly at the moment. I will aerate it again tomorrow and add some more nutrient and possibly some beano.
I keep updating this thread. Even if the beer end up a failure I will have learned plenty in the process.
 
With your system? Is it small?

It results in lower efficiency, but you could always do a Double Double. In case you haven't heard of it, you make your recipe, and divide it in half. Mash in as normal. Do your first runoff fast as you don't care if it's clear. Clean the mash tun and add your other half of grain, then add that wort back in for a second mash using wort instead of water.

My usual beers have an efficiency of ~74% or something. I did one Double Double almost a year ago and it was more like ~60%, but then I wasn't aiming as high as you did here. My result was 1.111 which is around what I was aiming for.

Anyway, it requires less mash tun space since you're dividing the mash in half.

If I were you, if the strongest you made before this was 13.3% or whatever, I'd aim for 16% or so, then 18 or 19% and so on. You learn at each step and figure out what techniques work. That's my 2 cents of nonsense, anyway.
 
MattHollingsworth said:
With your system? Is it small?

It results in lower efficiency, but you could always do a Double Double. In case you haven't heard of it, you make your recipe, and divide it in half. Mash in as normal. Do your first runoff fast as you don't care if it's clear. Clean the mash tun and add your other half of grain, then add that wort back in for a second mash using wort instead of water.
Click to expand...

My system is on small side. I have a huge mash tun about 100l but my kettle is only about 33l. That is all i can have in my small apartment.

But I really like the idea of the double double. Will put it to practice soon.

Bear in mind that I only have brewed for a year and recently felt confident enough to experiment. Initially I made a lot of clones based on recipes found on this forum or somewhere else.
But lately I have been making my own recipes, the 13.3% was supposed to be a 11% but somehow it went higher. I'm so looking forward to this coming year as I will experiment as much as I can with procedure and ingredients.
 
Only a year? I'd say not to rush. If you wanna make super high gravity beers, take your time and work your way up. You'll learn along the way. And, with brewing, patience is a good skill to learn. ;-)
 
In the warmer months I have at all times seven buckets fermenting. That gives me a little room for experimentation while I enjoy the other delicious brew I made already. The reason I have so many is that patience isn't my forte even tough it has improved in the last year. But with such a yield I have always something new to taste and enjoy.

The beer is slowly going down in Gravity. I have added another kg of sugar and aerated more. The gravity is down to 1066. Way too high still but the wlp 99 is still working nicely. Time will tell how low it will go down.
 
Checked the gravity again this morning. It is down to 1062. I doubt it will go much lower. I have now added 3 kg of sugar and I think that the gravity is only falling because of the alcohol formed by the sugar. So maybe if I add some more sugar I can dilute it some more but surely not to an level low enough, let's say around 1020-1025. At least the yeast is still working, but just not burning through the unfermentables. Really undecided what to do with it. The beer is very sweet Porto wine like. Barely a touch of Hops despite the 10.5 oz of high alpha hops I added during the final stage of the boil.
The ABV is currently at 15%.
 
I wonder if you could mask the sweetness via dry hopping? I know you won't get any of the acids that add bitterness, but maybe the floral overtones from the hops could detract from the cloying sweetness of it? I guess with nearly 11oz of hops already added and boiled for several hours I don't know how keen you would be on spending more money on this project...
 
At this point a few more of hops in dry hoping won't hurt more. I intend to keep is aging it at least 2 months in the primary. I was intending to dry hop anyway or add some oak, maybe both. I already gave up on it being a great beer but maybe time will change that. As I said this is an experiment and experiment do go wrong from time to time. As long as I get some lessons from it then it will have been worthwhile.
 
62 points in a glass seems like it would be like drinking beer flavored cough syrup. And not in a good way ;)

I'd go nuclear and hit it with Beano...

Cheers!
 
This morning the krauzen had finally fallen. Didn't have the time to do a gravity reading but I doubt it was much lower than yesterday. Since I have no choice I dumped a bunch of beano and fairly quickly the krauzen reappeared. It may just be the reaction of the beano. I'll see it tonight.
 
Well back from work and the krauzen is back about half an inch of it and bubbles every few seconds. Will test the gravity tomorrow.
 
I'm happy to report thta tthe massive beano drop didn't affect the taste of the beer. Unfortunately it did very little to bring the gravity down. I did add another kg of sugar ( that is 5 by now for an OG of 1210. The FG is down to 1058, still very high. The ABV is about 19% but you can barely tell there is alcohol in this beer, the sweetness overcome the alcohol taste. In comparison, my dfh 120 clone has a 19.5 abv but not as sweet has a much prounounced alcohol taste t it

I frankly doubth that it will go down much lower and I'm affraid it is too late to try to break the sugar with a lees stirer. Even tough at his point I don't much left to loose on this one

The hope that adding sugar will help to dilute the beer with the extra alcohol does not have a profound effect.

Anyway it is all in good fun, can't win them all.
 
Phunhog said:
I think what might screw you up some is not the gravity points but rather that you will already have alcohol in the beer. You are asking the yeast to ferment a 1.086 beer that is already 6-8 % alcohol. Definetly not the best conditions for healthy yeast reproduction.
Click to expand...

It could work if you add aerate again, the whole batch. Keep aerating until you near your final OG. o2 is good until the yeast are done.
 
doctorRobert said:
It could work if you add aerate again, the whole batch. Keep aerating until you near your final OG. o2 is good until the yeast are done.
Click to expand...

But if it stalls out now he would just end up oxidizing it and it would taste awful. He can just let it go and hope it goes down a bit over the next few Weeks/months its in the primary. If not aging will help blend the flavors in a beer that big
 
I fear the unfermentables are to blame and not high alcohol or lazy yeast. The only way to save this one is to brew a 100% pilsner or pale base that will ferment out to 1.004-1.008 to blend it with.
 
jeepinjeepin said:
I fear the unfermentables are to blame and not high alcohol or lazy yeast. The only way to save this one is to brew a 100% pilsner or pale base that will ferment out to 1.004-1.008 to blend it with.
Click to expand...

No the yeast is still working fine because it has absorbed the all the sugar i have thrown that it. I like that idea. Would you just add some boiled wort or would you brew a full beer with hops?

What kind of OG would you shoot for?
 
JollyIsTheRoger said:
But if it stalls out now he would just end up oxidizing it and it would taste awful. He can just let it go and hope it goes down a bit over the next few Weeks/months its in the primary. If not aging will help blend the flavors in a beer that big
Click to expand...

I fear to oxidize it as well so I have taken aerating out of the equation as of now.
 

Similar threads

iandanielursino
Lots of grain mush in the wort and scorching
Replies
15
Views
616
iandanielursino
iandanielursino
D
First Recipe: 1 Gallon Maris Otter / Goldings SMaSH (Comments, suggestions?)
Replies
6
Views
428
Northern_Brewer
Northern_Brewer
M
Feedback/Critique for my "Kitchen Sink" IPA - Empty my fridge
Replies
14
Views
868
Matheos
M
I
Blueberry wine sulphur smell
Replies
12
Views
514
Ibrew2
I
H
Coors Banquet
Replies
0
Views
889
huckdavidson
H

Latest posts

Back
Top