First time high abv beer

[capulinflicker]

So I have a "quad" (I put it in quotations because I had a farmhouse ale in mind, but greatly overshot my OG) that's sitting in the primary fermenter that just passed two weeks and I'm wondering how I should proceed with this one. I haven't done a high abv beer before and based on a sample reading I took about a week ago, I think this beer should be somewhere around 10.5% abv. I know that the high abv lends itself to prolonged aging but I'm wondering if I should move it to bulk age in a secondary, bottle it come the weekend, or let it sit on the yeast cake in primary for a couple more weeks? Thoughts?

Also, since I only bottle, how concerned should I be about having yeast available to carb the beer? I used Wyeast 3711 and they say the tolerance is 12%.

Any advice would be appreciated!

 

[Andrew5329]

Take a sample three days in a row, if the gravity remains unchanged your done.

When you expect 10.5%abv is that factoring in that the yeast will usually only use up about 80% of the available sugar? It's possible you may fall slightly short of 10%

 

[BrettFitz]

Would you mind giving some of your recipe measurements? I'm curious as to how much malt you used, and exactly what kind of malt.

Shoot, the whole recipe would be interesting. Post 'er up!

 

[ChessRockwell]

I'd let it sit in primary one more week, if the gravity is still the same it should be done there. Like you said, it's probably going to benefit from a fair amount of aging. Whether you do it in bottles or in bulk is up to you. I've never really done any bulk aging because from my understanding the only benefit seems to be that it all ages together and there won't be minor differences between the bottles, which have aged separately. I don't really see why there would be differences between the bottles so I just bottle and age 'em that way. I'm not an expert though so maybe someone who is can chime in on the benefits of bottle vs. bulk aging.

As far as carbing - I wouldn't worry about it at all, unless you do extended bulk aging, like more than 4-6 months. That's another reason I don't bulk age, bottle it earlier and I don't have to worry about adding yeast to carb it up. Your yeast being close to it's alcohol tolerance level might make it take a little longer to carb up, but it will, and since you're aging it you'll have plenty of time!

 

[capulinflicker]

Take a sample three days in a row, if the gravity remains unchanged your done.

When you expect 10.5%abv is that factoring in that the yeast will usually only use up about 80% of the available sugar? It's possible you may fall slightly short of 10%

I took a reading after one week of fermentation and it had dropped nearly 80 points, 1.088 to 1.010. I'm if correct I believe that figures out to about 10.25%, and it wasn't done. I haven't taken another hydro sample since, but I can only imagine it's gone up since.

 

[ChessRockwell]

it wasn't done. I haven't taken another hydro sample since, but I can only imagine it's gone up since.

If you used 3711 it probably has! 1.000 - 1.006 is pretty typical, and it doesn't really care what your recipe was.

 

[capulinflicker]

Would you mind giving some of your recipe measurements? I'm curious as to how much malt you used, and exactly what kind of malt.

Shoot, the whole recipe would be interesting. Post 'er up!

Sure thing. Still an extract brewer, working my way towards partial mash.

Fermentables:
6 lb Light LME
2 lb Munich LME

Specialty Grains:
0.5 lb Crystal 40L
0.25 lb Biscuit

Hops:
2 oz Styrian Goldings @ 60
0.5 oz Sterling @ 15
0.5 oz Sterling @ 2

Yeast:
3711 French Saison

Like I mentioned, I had originally intended to make a saison, but I think I got a little more conversion out of the grains than I had anticipated. Plugging this into the calculator gives me the following:

OG: 1.057
FG: 1.011
ABV: 5.94%
IBU: 31.54
SRM: 8.35

My OG ended up being 1.088! I was a little upset with myself at first but then I RDWHHB'd and all was well. I figure brewing is all about experimenting and rolling with it, I pretty much threw the BJCP style guidelines out the window with this one. I prefer to take the Bob Ross approach and consider it a "happy accident." If it turns out great, awesome! If not, well I'll store this in the back of the closet and see where father time takes it.

 

[ChessRockwell]

I had originally intended to make a saison, but I think I got a little more conversion out of the grains than I had anticipated.

Here's the thing - when you're an extract brewer, you don't get conversion from grains. You're not mashing them. If you do it's, REALLY minimal, not enough to throw off your gravity that much.

If you put in what your recipe said, your OG was not that far off. You probably boiled 3 gallons or so and topped off with water after the boil to reach 5 gallons, yes? You more than likely just got a skewed reading because all the sugars from the extract weren't mixed in all the way with the top off water, it's pretty common. Unless you didn't top off the water and this recipe was like 3 gallons or something, there's no way your OG was 1.088.

So chances are you have a pretty regular saison, sitting at 6.something, maybe up to 7%, and you can treat it just as you would any regular saison

 

[brewski08]

JP wants his biscuit malt mashed!

...and what JP wants...JP gets...

http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/chapter12-1.html

-that guy

 

[BrettFitz]

Thanks for posting that recipe. Looks pretty straight forward, and just different enough from what I've been doing that I want to try it.

I am curious about your readings as well. I was going to say your initial reading seemed too high, but I just looked back at my notes from my last batch - (I'm also an extract brewer). I also started with 8 lbs of extract plus a pound of grains for the initial steep. My initial reading was 1.087. My final is not as low as yours (wimpy yeast!).

So ChessRockwell, I'm also curious about your comment - wonder if I had similar issues. I generally stir the goods fairly vigorously before I pitch yeast, although I didn't actually write in my notes that I did this time. I can't imagine that I skipped that step.

With 8 pounds of extract in a 5-gallon batch, what should I have been expecting? With 6 pounds of DLME, I get 1.067ish pretty consistently. With 25% more DLME, the jump to 1.087 looks reasonable on the surface.

Thanks for the thread and recipe, Flick.

 

[homebrewdad]

First off, for a big beer - let it sit in primary for a good three weeks. Move it to a secondary after that and let it age a while. I've read seveal threads where guys split a large batch in half, age half in bottles and half in secondary - consensus seems to be that bulk aging is quicker and gives better beer sooner.

Now, as to your high ABV:

Another vote for "your OG wasn't as high as you thought it was".

I've done this a couple of times. The problem is that your wort and the top off water are very different, it's really hard to get them mixed thoroughly.

As an illustration - take a little honey and pour it into a cup of water. Stir the water. Did the honey fully dissolve? Not likely.

Luckily, the fermentation process DOES fully mix things up for you, so no worries. If you are doing an extract brew with top off water, the best bet is to assume your recipe's OG (provided that you added everything you were supposed to AND that you ended up with the correct volume).

Check this recent brew of mine, AFTER I mixed it like crazy. Tell me that a gravity reading from anywhere in this carboy is going to be the same as a reading from another spot.

Exactly.

 

[ChessRockwell]

With 8 pounds of extract in a 5-gallon batch, what should I have been expecting? With 6 pounds of DLME, I get 1.067ish pretty consistently. With 25% more DLME, the jump to 1.087 looks reasonable on the surface

With 8 pounds of LME in a 5g batch, 1.057 is about right, just like his recipe said. Now 8 pounds of DME would be a bit more, since it contains more fermentables per pound, something more like 1.071, so it depends on whether you're using DME or LME. I'm not sure what you mean by DLME?

Homebrewdad did a better job of explaining the top off water mixing problem - and with picture - thanks!

 

[BrettFitz]

Wow, that pic tells it all! Thanks. That just LOOKS like it smells delicious, fighting the urge to run to my shop and buy ingredients for a brew tonight.

DLME - the L is a color reference, "light."

Aw screw it. I'm brewing tonight.

 

[homebrewdad]

Wow, that pic tells it all! Thanks. That just LOOKS like it smells delicious, fighting the urge to run to my shop and buy ingredients for a brew tonight.

DLME - the L is a color reference, "light."

Aw screw it. I'm brewing tonight.

Thanks! It *is* delicious (and smells wonderful). This was my partial mash version of Revvy's Leffe Blonde clone (a Belgian blonde ale).

My partial mash recipe can be found here on my blog, if you want it.

 

[capulinflicker]

Here's the thing - when you're an extract brewer, you don't get conversion from grains. You're not mashing them. If you do it's, REALLY minimal, not enough to throw off your gravity that much.

If you put in what your recipe said, your OG was not that far off. You probably boiled 3 gallons or so and topped off with water after the boil to reach 5 gallons, yes? You more than likely just got a skewed reading because all the sugars from the extract weren't mixed in all the way with the top off water, it's pretty common. Unless you didn't top off the water and this recipe was like 3 gallons or something, there's no way your OG was 1.088.

So chances are you have a pretty regular saison, sitting at 6.something, maybe up to 7%, and you can treat it just as you would any regular saison

Here's what I did (to the best of my memory since I'm at the office and my notes are at home).

Heated one gallon of water to 165 deg F. Added steeping grains, removed from heat, covered, and wrapped with towel. Stirred occasionally for 30 minutes, water read 150 deg F after steeping. Set grain bag over main kettle to drip as I slowly rinsed with 140 deg F water. Here's where things got a little dodgy since my digital scale crapped out... I had a 3.3 lb can of Munich LME so I had to eyeball about a 1/3 of that to add to the kettle. After adding both LMEs I proceeded with the boil. Cooled the wort down to 80 deg F then topped off with water to 5.25 gal line on my bottling bucket. I did three transfers from the bucket to the kettle, then back to the bucket to aerate, then I stirred with a whisk for 5 minutes. Funneled off to my carboy, took a reading with my wine thief, then pitched my yeast.

So I'm guessing having to eye ball is probably the main culprit, but even if eyeballing is it possible to overshoot by 31 points just from LME? Which is why I'm thinking there had to be SOME extra conversion from the grains. I feel like my mixing procedure was pretty thorough, even after all that is it still possible that wort and the top off water weren't fully integrated?

 

[homebrewdad]

Here's what I did (to the best of my memory since I'm at the office and my notes are at home).

Heated one gallon of water to 165 deg F. Added steeping grains, removed from heat, covered, and wrapped with towel. Stirred occasionally for 30 minutes, water read 150 deg F after steeping. Set grain bag over main kettle to drip as I slowly rinsed with 140 deg F water. Here's where things got a little dodgy since my digital scale crapped out... I had a 3.3 lb can of Munich LME so I had to eyeball about a 1/3 of that to add to the kettle. After adding both LMEs I proceeded with the boil. Cooled the wort down to 80 deg F then topped off with water to 5.25 gal line on my bottling bucket. I did three transfers from the bucket to the kettle, then back to the bucket to aerate, then I stirred with a whisk for 5 minutes. Funneled off to my carboy, took a reading with my wine thief, then pitched my yeast.

So I'm guessing having to eye ball is probably the main culprit, but even if eyeballing is it possible to overshoot by 31 points just from LME? Which is why I'm thinking there had to be SOME extra conversion from the grains. I feel like my mixing procedure was pretty thorough, even after all that is it still possible that wort and the top off water weren't fully integrated?

What steeping grains did you use? Chances are they added little to no converted sugars. And no, eyeballing won't have you off by 31 points. That would require serious additional extract.

Did you see my pic above? I shook/stirred that batch for ten solid minutes... Note the froth on top. Doesn't matter, it settles into levels based on density QUICKLY. Most batches don't look this dramatic, but that segregation is happening just the same.

Use your recipe OG as a baseline, you won't be off by more than a couple of points either way if you hit your volumes.

 

[capulinflicker]

What steeping grains did you use? Chances are they added little to no converted sugars. And no, eyeballing won't have you off by 31 points. That would require serious additional extract.

Did you see my pic above? I shook/stirred that batch for ten solid minutes... Note the froth on top. Doesn't matter, it settles into levels based on density QUICKLY. Most batches don't look this dramatic, but that segregation is happening just the same.

Use your recipe OG as a baseline, you won't be off by more than a couple of points either way if you hit your volumes.

0.5 lbs Crystal 40L
0.25 lbs Munich

I kept a pretty close eye on it after pitching and I didn't get any stratification like the pic that you posted. It was all one uniform color.

 

[Maddoghoek]

Even if you got 100% conversion on the grains there's no way it added 30 points to your gravity. And LME/DME contribute a consistent % of fermentable sugars. Is it possible you took the reading before adding the top off water?

 

[homebrewdad]

0.5 lbs Crystal 40L
0.25 lbs Munich

I kept a pretty close eye on it after pitching and I didn't get any stratification like the pic that you posted. It was all one uniform color.

Look, I have been there before. I was certain that my first extract kit + speciality grains was somehow high on OG, and I thought my imperial nut brown ale (target of 1.080 or so) was in monseter barleywine territory (1.100).

Neither of them had the dramatic color differences of the pic I posted - but neither of them were completely mixed, either, despite my best efforts. Less than a pound of steeped speciality grains is not going to swing the gravity much, and I'm betting your recipe/kit already accounted for them, anyway.

The fact is that extracts contain a set amount of sugars, meaning that if you hit your volumes and use the right amount of extract, you can only sway the gravity by a couple hundredths.

The reason that all grain brewers miss their target gravity one way or another is that they get different efficiencies when mashing, meaning they get more or less sugar than planned. If you miss your target efficiency by five to ten percentage points on a fourteen pound grain bill, you're going to have a noticeable swing in gravity.

Extract does not have this possibility, period. It can't happen. Can't.

The ONLY way to explain your reading is that the extract isn't fully mixed with the top off water (see my analogy to honey and water above).

Again, use your recipe's OG and go with it.

 

[BrettFitz]

HBD - Does this all mean that if I start boiling all 5 gallons (instead of topping off with 2 gallons of cold water), that will eliminate the OG reading issues? Or should we pretty much always rely on the recipe to give us the initial reading?

Thanks-

 

[capulinflicker]

Look, I have been there before. I was certain that my first extract kit + speciality grains was somehow high on OG, and I thought my imperial nut brown ale (target of 1.080 or so) was in monseter barleywine territory (1.100).

Neither of them had the dramatic color differences of the pic I posted - but neither of them were completely mixe, either, despite my best efforts. Less than a pound of steeped speciality grains is not going to swing the gravity much, and I'm betting your recipe/kit already accounted for them, anyway.

The fact is that extracts contain a set amount of sugars, meaning that if you hit your volumes and use the right amount of extract, you can only sway the gravity by a couple hundredths.

The reason that all grain brewers miss their target gravity one way or another is that they get different efficiencies when mashing, meaning they get more or less sugar than planned. If you miss your target efficiency by five to ten percentage points on a fourteen pound grain bill, you're going to have a noticeable swing in gravity.

Extract does not have this possibility, period. It can't happen. Can't.

The ONLY way to explain your reading is that the extract isn't fully mixed with the top off water (see my analogy to honey and water above).

Again, use your recipe's OG and go with it.

Good to know. I could've sworn I pulled a hydro sample after topping off and mixing because I remember taking my wine thief out, but from what you've posted it sounds like its pretty hard to get a 30 point swing by mistake. Thanks for the info, good stuff!

 

[homebrewdad]

HBD - Does this all mean that if I start boiling all 5 gallons (instead of topping off with 2 gallons of cold water), that will eliminate the OG reading issues? Or should we pretty much always rely on the recipe to give us the initial reading?

Thanks-

The problem is that you have to END UP with five gallons. If you boil five, you end up with fourish gallons of what is now higher gravity wort.

 

[homebrewdad]

Good to know. I could've sworn I pulled a hydro sample after topping off and mixing because I remember taking my wine thief out, but from what you've posted it sounds like its pretty hard to get a 30 point swing by mistake. Thanks for the info, good stuff!

No worries, man. When I ran into this, I was convinced that I had mixed the hell out of mine, I took three different gravity readings, I KNEW I was right.

Only, I wasn't. The chemistry there just doesn't allow it.

So yeah, relax.