I am not exactly brewing from scratch, I've made wine, mead, apfelwine etc, but beer no.
Now I have been freeze concentrating and getting into 30% abv+ with a home freezer.
My method and observations.
Take a 2l empty plastic bottle (soda bottle works well here).
Pour in ~1.5l (4 - 12 oz cans worth) of beer deflating it in the process. Its actually good to shake the 2l etc and get as much co2 out. Squeeze the bottle so expansion space is available in it and the core isn't as deep inside (you'd see what I mean in a bit).
Put it in the freezer at a 45 degree angle. 24-48 hr in the home freezer set to max will freeze the beer solid.
Then invert that coke bottle on top of mason jar and melt out the right amount. Say you put in 48oz of 7%. Melting out 7 oz would get you a theoretical max of 48% (assuming no alcohol is left in the ice) But I typically melt 10oz leaving me at a theoretical 32% (though it almost never gets that high I'll bet).
I do this to cut down on the carbs in the end drink, without crossing over to the spirits side.
Observations, the resulting drink will have more intense everything but does have the classic taste of the base beer obviously. Its cleaned up some mediocre beers rather well, and improved many many others, including taking some from great to spectacular. Some of course have gone from bad to worse.
You can do this with deflated, old, stale, etc etc beer, which is how I got a lot of these, 3-12 month old stock.
OK My favorite was Double indemnity by Legal remedy. 8.6% abv base, and went from great to spectacular.
Pabst APA, and a good many others have improved significantly to go from below average to good/great.
Some beers go the other way too. Good to below average, and these tend to be the ones that had a lot of dark aged - like Old Chub by oskar blues. Nice scotch ale, turns much too pine tar tasting when concentrated. Like chewing on a piece of oak.
One beer that was bad to start with and turned spectacularly bad was Funky Buddha Hefeweizen.
Now for the question.
How to find what abv I'm ending up with.
I have so far failed in nearly all ways to do this, I have no OG anything. Its got carbs, but likely nothing fermentable, its got alcohol, and no idea of how much carbs to start with or where I end up.
I can tell its stronger, and I could try a saliva test or even a breathalyser, but those are inaccurate too.
Thanks.
Srinath.
Now I have been freeze concentrating and getting into 30% abv+ with a home freezer.
My method and observations.
Take a 2l empty plastic bottle (soda bottle works well here).
Pour in ~1.5l (4 - 12 oz cans worth) of beer deflating it in the process. Its actually good to shake the 2l etc and get as much co2 out. Squeeze the bottle so expansion space is available in it and the core isn't as deep inside (you'd see what I mean in a bit).
Put it in the freezer at a 45 degree angle. 24-48 hr in the home freezer set to max will freeze the beer solid.
Then invert that coke bottle on top of mason jar and melt out the right amount. Say you put in 48oz of 7%. Melting out 7 oz would get you a theoretical max of 48% (assuming no alcohol is left in the ice) But I typically melt 10oz leaving me at a theoretical 32% (though it almost never gets that high I'll bet).
I do this to cut down on the carbs in the end drink, without crossing over to the spirits side.
Observations, the resulting drink will have more intense everything but does have the classic taste of the base beer obviously. Its cleaned up some mediocre beers rather well, and improved many many others, including taking some from great to spectacular. Some of course have gone from bad to worse.
You can do this with deflated, old, stale, etc etc beer, which is how I got a lot of these, 3-12 month old stock.
OK My favorite was Double indemnity by Legal remedy. 8.6% abv base, and went from great to spectacular.
Pabst APA, and a good many others have improved significantly to go from below average to good/great.
Some beers go the other way too. Good to below average, and these tend to be the ones that had a lot of dark aged - like Old Chub by oskar blues. Nice scotch ale, turns much too pine tar tasting when concentrated. Like chewing on a piece of oak.
One beer that was bad to start with and turned spectacularly bad was Funky Buddha Hefeweizen.
Now for the question.
How to find what abv I'm ending up with.
I have so far failed in nearly all ways to do this, I have no OG anything. Its got carbs, but likely nothing fermentable, its got alcohol, and no idea of how much carbs to start with or where I end up.
I can tell its stronger, and I could try a saliva test or even a breathalyser, but those are inaccurate too.
Thanks.
Srinath.
