13% Hazy?

[Bk brewing]

I’m trying to make a 13% hazy ipa - I’m not sure why. It’s just been in my head as my white whale. I like making sneaky beers that taste like a 6% but truly are 9!
We have a local brewery - Blackstack - that pushes high abv hazy’s. They recently did a 14% hazy - and I heard it was a bit of a miss.
I know yeast doesn’t like to go that high so I’m considering white labs super high gravity ale yeast WLP - 099. This says it tolerates up to 25%. I know it’s used for barleywines, but I don’t see anyone using it for a hazy. Please help and thanks.

 

[wdavis2003]

I would recommend that you forget trying to hit a 13% Hazy IPA and put your focus into trying to brew a great Quadruple IPA. A local brewery around me produces quad IPA's at 12.4%. Don't worry about the number per se, just try to hit the beer style

Here's a link for tips on brewing quadruple IPA's.

https://winning-homebrew.com/quadruple-ipa.html

 

[VikeMan]

I don't think you need to resort to WLP099, which is a diastatic strain. The "Chico" strains (like WLP001 and Wyeast 1056) can handle a13% ABV environment (despite their published tolerances) if you pitch enough healthy yeast and adequate yeast nutrients. Chico strains aren't the most common strains in NEIPAs, but there are some breweries using them.

 

[MaxStout]

A possible double-edged sword here. The flavor/aroma hops in a hazy have a very limited shelf life, in a big beer that may need some time for aging. A 13% beer may taste hot when young. By the time the alcohol burn smooths out your hops have diminished.

Do you keg? If so, that's a plus, as you can do closed transfers to minimize oxygen pickup. If you apply good LODO practices, you might be able to pull it off.

 

[redrocker652002]

To each his own, but that big an ABV does not sound all that appealing to me. When I want a beer I usually am just relaxing and there are usually a few to be had. One that high would knock me on my azz and that would be about it. But hey, that's what makes this a fun hobby, each has his or her own favorite.

 

[AlexKay]

I don't think you need to resort to WLP099, which is a diastatic strain. The "Chico" strains (like WLP001 and Wyeast 1056) can handle a13% ABV environment (despite their published tolerances) if you pitch enough healthy yeast and adequate yeast nutrients. Chico strains aren't the most common strains in NEIPAs, but there are some breweries using them.

I have used US-05 for barleywine and while it eventually always does the job, some of the time it is veeeery slow about it. Lallemand Nottingham, on the other hand, is a champ for high-ABV beers. Be prepared for somewhat, ah, "vigorous" fermentation, though.

 

[Mr. Vern]

Not a Hazy but still interesting:
I think about Bell's adding honey to Hopslam which should kick up the yeast as they manage their way through the more complex sugars. I am unsure when they add honey today, but I am pretty sure it was used to kick up a slow/stalling fermentation on the first batch. I learned this during a Zoom event with the brewers and staff. Disclaimer: I was a couple deep by then!

Maybe this would help with keeping FG in check, I find a lot of high ABV pale ales are too cloy to enjoy more than a few ounces.

 

[Bk brewing]

I don't think you need to resort to WLP099, which is a diastatic strain. The "Chico" strains (like WLP001 and Wyeast 1056) can handle a13% ABV environment (despite their published tolerances) if you pitch enough healthy yeast and adequate yeast nutrients. Chico strains aren't the most common strains in NEIPAs, but there are some breweries using them.

I have used US-05 for barleywine and while it eventually always does the job, some of the time it is veeeery slow about it. Lallemand Nottingham, on the other hand, is a champ for high-ABV beers. Be prepared for somewhat, ah, "vigorous" fermentation, though.

These are good points. I’m not sure what a diastatic strain means, but it doesn’t sound good.
I will have to check out the Lallemand.
What about a London 3? I just used this on a hazy and hit 9.1% in only a few days. I wonder if it could handle 13? It didn’t flinch at 9.
It seems like there’s pushback on going for the high abv, which is why I think it would be balancing to have it be a hazy. Smooth it out so it’s drinkable?

 

[dustinstriplin]

I'd aim to make it drinkable as soon as possible, since the hop compounds drop out quickly and are quickly impacted by O2. Consider hopping similar to a DIPA (90-100 IBUs) to maintain a balance between sweetness and bitterness. I see a lot of potential for this beer to be way to sweet (to my tastes), which may be what you're going for.

Recommend using a lot of pure O2 before pitching yeast, then hitting with more O2 at 12 hours. Cooling temp control is also important to get as clean of a ferment as possible. A unhealthy ferment will increase aging time, which will push the beer past it's peak hoppiness when it's ready to drink. Oh, a big yeast starter is a necessity. The starter calculator on brewers friend is very helpful. Chill and decant the starter before pitching.

It sounds like you may not have any really big beers under your belt, apologies if I'm incorrect. By really big, I mean pushing the limits of what yeast can accomplish due to the osmotic pressure of the wort. Starting off with a quad IPA is a good idea to get you more familiar with big beers; it will be more forgiving than creating something new. There are challenges involved in high abv beers that require more experience than a standard ale. If you still want to take on a big hazy after learning how to make a big beer, then your odds of success will be much higher.

 

[day_trippr]

These are good points. I’m not sure what a diastatic strain means, but it doesn’t sound good.

"What is Diastaticus? Diastaticus is a variant of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (brewer's yeast) with the ability to modify the fermentability of beer due to an STA1 gene which causes the organism to secrete glucoamylase, an enzyme which hydrolyzes dextrins and starches into fermentable sugars."

The power of an active STA1 gene can be bad or good. Context matters...

Cheers!

 

[mac_1103]

I'm not big on hazies, but some day I would like to brew something that sort of reminds me of a Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA - 15% ABV and 120 IBU.

 

[Bk brewing]

I'd aim to make it drinkable as soon as possible, since the hop compounds drop out quickly and are quickly impacted by O2. Consider hopping similar to a DIPA (90-100 IBUs) to maintain a balance between sweetness and bitterness. I see a lot of potential for this beer to be way to sweet (to my tastes), which may be what you're going for.

Recommend using a lot of pure O2 before pitching yeast, then hitting with more O2 at 12 hours. Cooling temp control is also important to get as clean of a ferment as possible. A unhealthy ferment will increase aging time, which will push the beer past it's peak hoppiness when it's ready to drink. Oh, a big yeast starter is a necessity. The starter calculator on brewers friend is very helpful. Chill and decant the starter before pitching.

It sounds like you may not have any really big beers under your belt, apologies if I'm incorrect. By really big, I mean pushing the limits of what yeast can accomplish due to the osmotic pressure of the wort. Starting off with a quad IPA is a good idea to get you more familiar with big beers; it will be more forgiving than creating something new. There are challenges involved in high abv beers that require more experience than a standard ale. If you still want to take on a big hazy after learning how to make a big beer, then your odds of success will be much higher.

I appreciate the advice on this. I don’t have a big playbook of really big beers. I have peaked out at about 10%.
I did look at some of the top quad ipa’s. Most of these are hazy so I don’t think I’m going very far out of the box here.
I am curious what advice you might have on this.
Are you saying I should do a different big beer for experience? Like a barelywine? And then learn from that?

 

[dustinstriplin]

I appreciate the advice on this. I don’t have a big playbook of really big beers. I have peaked out at about 10%.
I did look at some of the top quad ipa’s. Most of these are hazy so I don’t think I’m going very far out of the box here.
I am curious what advice you might have on this.
Are you saying I should do a different big beer for experience? Like a barelywine? And then learn from that?

I guess if the quads of today tend to be hazy then you have an example. I was just suggesting to go for a style that has many examples and battle tested recipes so you have an idea how to make a beer that size.

The more I think about though, a hazy 13% does sound pretty similar to a quad. The large dry hop and whirlpool may pass peak before the beer tastes great, but who knows, could be awesome.

 

[McMullan]

More hazing IPA?

 

[Beermeister32]

I like lower ABV drinkable beers, 5-6% is plenty. I prefer thirst quenching beers you can drink by the pint. High ABV IPAs aren’t that, they are pushing the mixed drink/cocktail boundary. I prefer something you can chug several easier.

 

[hottpeper13]

I make big beers for Black Friday(they don't all have to be RIS's) And the two things I always do are 1- make a small beer of no more then 1.040 ,5 gal and repitch the whole cake. 2- mash at 148* for 2 hours. Notty is my go to for ales and I have an uberbock at 1.095 with wlp833 in primary now hoping for an fg of 1.020.

 

[gunhaus]

I’m trying to make a 13% hazy ipa - I’m not sure why. It’s just been in my head as my white whale. I like making sneaky beers that taste like a 6% but truly are 9!
We have a local brewery - Blackstack - that pushes high abv hazy’s. They recently did a 14% hazy - and I heard it was a bit of a miss.
I know yeast doesn’t like to go that high so I’m considering white labs super high gravity ale yeast WLP - 099. This says it tolerates up to 25%. I know it’s used for barleywines, but I don’t see anyone using it for a hazy. Please help and thanks.

Well I see replies recommending you brew something else, and I see reasons why you should not do it, and I see a few negatives - All the normal stuff! How about a great big reason TO BUILD THIS BEER:

Because you want to.

There, that part of the discussion is closed, cause THAT is the only reason you need to brew something. (And well your at it give it a catchy new name and create your own new style and category just to offend the style police who like to pigeon hole every brew into a proper category!)

Beyond that: I would +1 the idea of building a smaller simpler beer first, THEN pitching the big beer right on to the left over yeast cake. This will give you a healthy start to the ferment! I would also add a percentage of plain ole sugar of some sort at the end of the boil, to help dry things out a bit and to potentially speed up the ferment a tad.

NEVER let others derail your ideas or ambitions - Build it and see; that is how good things happen. Sure you might get a dud - but you also might get a gem. Without trying we would all be drinking something like Sahti still.

As for the obligatory highjack: I recently built a nice little cream ale with honey for an adjunct. Here was that nice yeast cake of Denny's Favorite just begging to be used for something. I thought, Germans have Maibock, Belgians have Golden Strong Ale, why can't we have an American higher ABV, moderate hop character overly fizzy Golden beer too! So I made a sort of 9.1% ABV cream Ale with American Barley, corn, sugar and hops - Then bottle finished to up in the 3.5 to 4 volume range, (Belgian bottles - but they were American made!) Got guff over it when i mentioned it at a visit to a friends brew club - I was told that is just a barley wine, but way to fizzy. Someone else called it gross old fashioned malt liquor. One guy freaked out for 20 minutes because it was not to "Cream Ale Style". I am calling it American Golden Cream Strong. Don't know yet if it is good bad or otherwise - it is still growing bubbles in the corner - I will opine after dry January. I figure worst case it will have that really cool cotton candy head like Duvel can have and the twenty-somethings will swill it down during the Super Bowl because it is free.
SO just make your high octane murky beer and have fun doing it!

 

[InspectorJon]

^ @gunhaus is correct about a lot of things here, not the least of which is, go for it if it sounds like something you would like. I think it was @Dgallo that got me thinking a little differently about adding sugar to dry out a beer. More simple sugar means more alcohol. More alcohol lowers the FG a small amount because it is lighter than water but that reduction is really a tiny percentage. The unfermentable sugar amount stays the same so the FG is really pretty much what it would be if you did not add simple sugar, you just end up with a higher attenuation number. If you have wort that wants to finish at 1.040, adding more simple sugar will not really reduce that number much, if at all.

That's kind of a technicality and I am not arguing against adding simple sugar. It is a common practice with big beers like this, particularly if you want the higher alcohol and don't want a heavy body, high FG beer. It has been suggested that adding the sugar as an addition towards the end of fermentation can be useful to energize the tired yeast with something easy to work on. Mashing at low temperature for a long time will also help produce a dryer beer. Making high ABV beer is more complicated than standard ABV beer. There is a lot written on the subject. Lots of good tips here already. Spend some time and do the research and you will have a better chance of success.

 

[Dgallo]

If you’re looking to really hit a 13% hazy, you could start here with my triple hazy recipe and then bump it up to the OG you need for your target. To do so I would use Pilsner light dme. I wouldn’t up any specialty malts and keep them at the same weight (not percentages)

The recipe uses 05

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/new-england-style-tipa.679435/

 

[Bk brewing]

Well I see replies recommending you brew something else, and I see reasons why you should not do it, and I see a few negatives - All the normal stuff! How about a great big reason TO BUILD THIS BEER:

Because you want to.

There, that part of the discussion is closed, cause THAT is the only reason you need to brew something. (And well your at it give it a catchy new name and create your own new style and category just to offend the style police who like to pigeon hole every brew into a proper category!)

Beyond that: I would +1 the idea of building a smaller simpler beer first, THEN pitching the big beer right on to the left over yeast cake. This will give you a healthy start to the ferment! I would also add a percentage of plain ole sugar of some sort at the end of the boil, to help dry things out a bit and to potentially speed up the ferment a tad.

NEVER let others derail your ideas or ambitions - Build it and see; that is how good things happen. Sure you might get a dud - but you also might get a gem. Without trying we would all be drinking something like Sahti still.

As for the obligatory highjack: I recently built a nice little cream ale with honey for an adjunct. Here was that nice yeast cake of Denny's Favorite just begging to be used for something. I thought, Germans have Maibock, Belgians have Golden Strong Ale, why can't we have an American higher ABV, moderate hop character overly fizzy Golden beer too! So I made a sort of 9.1% ABV cream Ale with American Barley, corn, sugar and hops - Then bottle finished to up in the 3.5 to 4 volume range, (Belgian bottles - but they were American made!) Got guff over it when i mentioned it at a visit to a friends brew club - I was told that is just a barley wine, but way to fizzy. Someone else called it gross old fashioned malt liquor. One guy freaked out for 20 minutes because it was not to "Cream Ale Style". I am calling it American Golden Cream Strong. Don't know yet if it is good bad or otherwise - it is still growing bubbles in the corner - I will opine after dry January. I figure worst case it will have that really cool cotton candy head like Duvel can have and the twenty-somethings will swill it down during the Super Bowl because it is free.
SO just make your high octane murky beer and have fun doing it!

Great advise! This gives me motivation to rock this SOB!
You are right and I want to try something different because I have the freedom to do so.
Thanks for the encouragement

 

[Dgallo]

Great advise! This gives me motivation to rock this SOB!
You are right and I want to try something different because I have the freedom to do so.
Thanks for the encouragement

How big is your mash tun?

 

[gunhaus]

How big is your mash tun?

That's kinda personal ain't it??

 

[Dgallo]

That's kinda personal ain't it??

I’ll show you mine first!

 

[Bk brewing]

I’ll show you mine first!

Ive got a Ss brewtech 20 gallon mash tun.
Curious about the yeast. Said you used A24 in the recipe. Did you do a starter? It looks like I would need to do a few step ups with a starter and get it huge. Not sure. Also seems like sugar can be added to the end to get the yeast going the final mile. Any thoughts on that?

How big of a deal is ph control on this and what did you use to regulate yours?

 

[Dgallo]

Ive got a Ss brewtech 20 gallon mash tun.
Curious about the yeast. Said you used A24 in the recipe. Did you do a starter? It looks like I would need to do a few step ups with a starter and get it huge. Not sure. Also seems like sugar can be added to the end to get the yeast going the final mile. Any thoughts on that?

How big of a deal is ph control on this and what did you use to regulate yours?

A24 is my favorite yeast for hop forward beers. I used us05 last time I brewed this so for some reason I thought the original recipe I posted used 05 as well.

To meet your cell count, step up starters will be your cheapest option for a24 or US05 but you probably have to go 2L,4or 5L then decant due to the size of the starter. If you go us 05 you can just pitch 3 or 4 packs. Another option is to make a 5 gallon pale ale or 6% ipa first and then right when you rack the beer off the yeast of the first beer, you could rack the new triple ipa right onto that yeast cake

In terms of ph, I use my water chemistry to control that. Since I build from my tap water (had it tested so I have my numbers for my ions) I need lactic acid to hit my ph but it all depends on your water make up you might not need anything.