Higher estimated ABV than expected

Ok, so my OG was a lot higher than expected when I made the recipe, I was aiming for about 8% and instead will hit closer to 11% and this is on a blonde. What I'm afraid of is that the alcohol flavor will be too strong or apparent, is there anything that I can do to help offset the alcohol flavor? It's in primary right now. Or should I just wait it out and see how it turns out and not worry about it?

I know it seems silly to worry about hitting too high of an ABV lol but I'm just worried that since this will be such a light and dry beer that there won't be much to hide the alcohol.

 

8% Blonde.

Wow.

How do know it's at 11%. Do you have an OG and an FG. It's done fermenting? Can't imagine a blonde ale at 11%. That's going to take some months to mellow I think.

bottle it up for sure. See how it tastes over time.

 

Wow 11%. That's double the norm for a blonde

 

Just estimating based on attenuation of the yeast, and the OG. I was already aiming for the high side of the style and majorly overshot my efficiency. I figured this would take a long time in the bottle to be drinkable lol

 

Yeah, I know lol that's why I was a little worried about it. I was aiming for the high side of the style expecting to not hit a great efficiency but actually hit an 85% efficiency. Second beer that I've brewed and overshot the efficiency. Guess I should just start expecting to do that every time and adjust accordingly lol

 

Did you top off in the fermenter? You might not have gotten the wort & water mixed real well when you took the hydrometer sample...

 

Yeah, I topped it off and stirred it very vigorously lol

I was wondering too if adding some oranges and orange zest (left over from wheat beer) would help soften the alcohol vote?

 

It may take a bit to bottle condition and mellow out the alcohol burn. However, at 11% it should age nicely without spoiling.

 

I'm sure that's right CJ.

 

Yeah, I figured that I'll bottle it and put it up in a closet somewhere for a month or two before I even taste it haha I'm debating adding oranges to it still

 

Ok So, updated on the high abv blonde. It's finished it's primary fermentation it seems, the FG has settled out at 1.005 making this beer 12.2%abv.

Gathering my courage, I took a taste test from the gravity reading. It definitely needs a little time to mellow out the alcohol, but I feel like this will be a fairly dangerous beer after it mellows out. The alcohol was more of a hint, and then a warmth in your belly.

I added 6 medium sized oranges and the zest from them at 3 days into primary, which comes through very nicely. It finished very dry, as would be expected I guess.

All In all I think this will be a pretty good beer.

 

What was the OG?

 

The OG was 1.092

 

What was the yeast? That's some hefty (95%) attenuation!

 

I used a us-05 yeast cake from a previous brew and also mashed at low temps, about 148. Give or take fluctuations since I had a hard time keeping a steady temp that day.

 

Can I ask what your recipe was for this beer?

 

Sure!

12lb pilsener
2lb malted wheat
1lb cane sugar

Mash @ 148 for 90 minutes

2oz Styrian Holding for 60 minutes.

Fermented at 60°f for 3 days and slowly raised up to 68° over the course of 7 days.

Zest and Peel 6 medium sized oranges I'm primary after first 3 days, for 4 days.

Thinking of adding 12 oz of frozen raspberries to secondary.

 

The recipe looks good. I may add it for spring time.

That is some crazy efficiency, that's 88% brew house efficiency plus as btbnl said 95% attenuation.

According to my calculator, it should have finished at 1.024. I have never had S-05 finish that low before. How big was your yeast cake?

 

How big is the batch size. Those are some very strange numbers.

 

It was a 5 gallon batch. I'm still pretty new, what about the numbers are strange?

 

It comes in at 78% brewhouse efficiency assuming 5 gallons of wort entered the fermentor.

For a big beer this is very high. Kudos to you and your methods for doing such a good job. This is very very high though. You would have had to do a lot of sparging and have a very long boil to get this high a gravity from that grain-bill.

Just seems oddly high, somewhat akin to measurement error.

Similarly the FG is strangely low. For that yeast (even with a massive over-pitch and a cooler mash which you say was not well controlled) it should never get this low with that OG.

This for sure points to measurement error in the OG or some unwanted microbes in the beer bringing the FG down.

Assuming infection is not in play, error in your OG reading is the only remaining logical explanation for your numbers.

The other explanation is extremely high efficiency with an extensive and possible over-sparge very long boil or very vigorous boil and a yeast that is far out-performing what is typically observed with the strain +/- infection.

Simplest explanation is usually the right one, but not always.

That's what I meant by the numbers looking strange

 

That's some awesome efficiency for sure, great job on that! I had a similar experience actually when I first started brewing; I was always overshooting my numbers by A LOT! I was always pretty happy though since I was shooting for "Go big or go home" most of the time, but I would totally miss the style guidelines I was shooting for. Not that I cared, my neighbors seem to like my brews even though I never do the same one twice...lol.

At any rate, the reason I think for my own over-efficiency was a super long, super slow sparge + never raising the wort to mash-out temp. So basically, It was a 2 or three hour mash because of the slow sparge (If that makes sense). Then a yeast starter and a fermentation chamber with precise control (brewpi).

The result: I made a Pliey the elder clone once that came out at something like 13% ABV because of the big grain bill. It took FOREVER to mellow that one out and I lost a lot of hop character over time of course but at the end it was really good. You had to be careful with it though, it was deceptively "innocent".

 

There's definitely a possibility of a mistake on my part but with all of my measurements that are above or below what's expected I always measure several different times, make sure my hydrometer is accurate etc. I can say with a 99% surety that my measurements were accurate.

There's possibility of an infection as well, I would count that as a higher chance than measurement error. Though I sanitize everything with an almost OCD tendency, I was a little worried pitching onto the cake causing an infection because the cake sat in the bucket for about 12 hours before I pitched the wort onto it.

 

That's how these past couple batches have gone. My last batch had about a 92% efficiency... That beer turned out to be 7% and amazing, and is quick to send you to bed early xP I don't do really long sparges though. I do biab and do a small sparge and squeeze the bag a bit while it hangs over the brew kettle