Attempting 40%+ ABV beer... "Barley Brandy"

[paulthenurse]

Some random Friday morning thought...

I wouldn't be in too big a hurry to dry it out as much as possible. While batch one tastes ok now I wonder what it's going to taste like with 20% of it's water gone. I think you might need more residual sugar than you hope to have just to have something balanced and drinkable.

 

[Cape Brewing]

uhh... ok.

Not really sure where you're getting "20% of it's water gone" nor do I get your theory that it you take a "thin" beer and remove "20% of the water" that would make it even thinner but... ok.

Uhh... advice taken I guess.

 

[paulthenurse]

I guess I should have prefaced my remark by saying there was no ball busting intended or implied.

I said 20% just as a guess. How much water/volume do you expect to remove? Is there a formula to determine that if you remove X volume from Y volume of a Z % ABV beer you will end up with ?

 

[the_bird]

I think I know what he's saying. Imagine these beers finish fermenting at 1.015, before freeze concentration. Great attenuation.

Now, let's say you are able to successfully remove a good percentage of the water through freeze concentration.

What's the FG of the remaining beer going to be?n Probably a fair amount below 1.00, since the liquor that remains is going to have such a high percentage of alcohol. It could end up a lot thinner than you think.

Personally, I just think Paulie's jealous of your fermentation (although, have you done any tastings yet? You aren't making massive fusels, are you?).

If Paulie *is* right and the beer ends up too thin, though, that's a pretty easy problem to solve - just backsweeten a little.

 

[paulthenurse]

It actually tastes pretty good, considering its a week old. I was getting alot of apple notes but what do you expect? There was a definate smoke note, we debated whether it was the rauch or the peat, but it's there and notable. I think it has potential. Of course, given that he stole my recipe for this, that is to be expected.

PTN

 

[Cape Brewing]

I think you meant to say, "improved" the recipe and actually executed it.

ok, no ball busting...

I see the point given Bird's translation but I also think that as you remove the water, you are concetrating the malt. FG will drop as you describe Bird but I think the malt backbone would also somewhat inversely increase.

If you have some magical number of "units of malt", I would strongly expect those "units" to remain constant as the volume goes down... significntly increasing the malt in the end product.

Like we were talking about earlier in thread... I think the dropping of FG like you describe Brid... will offset this increase in "malt" and won't leave it like syrup.


I am looking to take about 50% of the volume out Paul.... I am shooting for as far north of 40% as I can get. If I can get the FG on everything to a point where I'm looking at 25% ABV... I'll still freeze concentrate shooting for 50% of volume out and hope to end up with a final ABV close to 50%

 

[Tinga]

I don't think it will end up being syrupy. I make beer shampoo and to make it you take a bottle of beer and boil it down to a quarter its original size. The boil i assume gets rid of both the water and the alcohol. So it is concentrating the malt like you described above and the end result is not terribly thick. Obviously it is thicker but it still flows at about the same rate. all this with no alcohol too.


But I guess it is quite warm, when I see it, reducing viscosity.

 

[Cape Brewing]

Also... like I've mentioned a couple of times on this thread, I'm not 100% hung up on this being "drinkable and balanced" (no, not a ball busting shot at you Paul).

I am doing this 90% because I want to try the process and 10% I am just hoping it is reasonably drinkable.

I want to try this, hopefully learn a few lessons, and then if I want to shoot for something a lot more refined, drinkable, balanced... whatever you want to call it... I'll hopefully be able to use a few lessons to do so.

 

[paulthenurse]

Beer shampoo? Really? Why?

 

[paulthenurse]

I woke up in the middle of the night with the thought that if you took a bunch of sterile gauze and dropped that in the beer when you froze it that would give the water molecules a place to seed and grow. Then you could lift out the gauze/ice slurry leaving the rest behind.

Worth considering.

 

[Tinga]

Beer shampoo? Really? Why?

Simple cheap way to extend the life of a bottle of shampoo. Also is good for your hair and scalp.

 

[paulthenurse]

So you spend five to six hours and $25-$35 to brew beer so you can extend a $1.98 bottle of Johnson's Baby Shampoo?


(Shaking my head in absolute disbelief.)


Hey Cape, is this farkin guy pullin' my chain or what?

 

[Cape Brewing]

Maybe you guys should PM and hash it out.

 

[paulthenurse]

While I've been known to take a bottle of beer into the shower it's always been with the intention of drinking it while I scrub up.

Besides, I don't have that much hair left anyway. I'm only halfway thru a bottle bought in 2006

 

[paulthenurse]

I'd say your self proclaimed goal of keeping this thread on topic is coming up a bit short. Bummah.

 

[Cape Brewing]

Obviously. I'm sure everyone is enjoying your input

 

[lastsecondapex]

Simple cheap way to extend the life of a bottle of shampoo. Also is good for your hair and scalp.

I don't think I need another reason for smelling like beer during the work day, or do you only do lambics?

 

[Tinga]

eeessssshhhhhh really coming at me for some reason. I'm still a new brewer so I have a bad batch of bottles I use for cooking and what not. The beer scent is basically boiled off during the reducing phase. I'm pretty surprised a bunch of beer geeks such as yourselves have never heard of beer shampoo.

 

[lastsecondapex]

eeessssshhhhhh really coming at me for some reason. I'm still a new brewer so I have a bad batch of bottles I use for cooking and what not. The beer scent is basically boiled off during the reducing phase. I'm pretty surprised a bunch of beer geeks such as yourselves have never heard of beer shampoo.

Just bustin balls man, have actually used a beer soap before and it smelled amazing. Got it at a monastery

 

[Hex]

Hey Cape, are those yeasties finished already? We want more action photos...

 

[Cape Brewing]

I'll take some more yeast pron pics when I get home. I will probably wait at least a couple days before taking a gravity.

I did pick up some more 099 today so I'm make a gallon starter tonight and try to double it up over the weekend.

I am hoping to feed the first batch with the 099, oxygen and lowered gravity wort from the second batch early next week. (and I leave for the NHC on weds morning)

 

[DrinksWellWithOthers]

I forgot about that Fermcap but then again I don't have much use for it right now anyways. Tell ya what, keep it and get me a tube of 099 next time you head to the Homebrew Emporium. My Awesomeness could use some fizz.

 

[Cape Brewing]

Update on the yeasties and a breakdown of all of the numbers:

I had to open up Excel and lay it all out. I know my FG it is not going to be EXACT but doing a few back-of-the-envelope calcs... here is what I came out with:

7 total gallons with an OG of 1.200

Batch 1:
- 4 gallons of OG 1.126
- Pitched US-05 cake from 10 gallon of 1090 IPA
- Seven days later, gravity was 1.019
- Racked to large starter of 099
- Added 1 lb of maple syrup adding 7 gravity pts so gravity was raised to 1.026

Batch 2:
- 3.75 gallons of 1.260

Once batch 2 was done, I dumped out .25 gallons of Batch 1 so I would have equal amounts. I am estimating 1200 OG on the entire batch based on 3.75 gallons of 1260 and 3.75 gallons of 1133 (1126 plus 7 for the maple syrup) and then I have one more lb of maple syrup to add... so... 1200 in my book.

Once I had the two amounts equal in volume, I took 1 gallon from each and added it to the other.

This is what I then come out with in terms of "OGs post first blending"

Batch 1: OG 1.088
Batch 2: OG 1.198

I ended up not pitching yeast into Batch 2 until Thursday night. I realized late Weds night, after the B's game that I wasn't about to run that 1260 through my plate chiller so I water/ice bathed it (old school) and got it down a bit but wasn't hitting pitching temps that night so I said eff it, capped it and went to bed. It'll be fine.

So I pitched Thursday night when I got home work (when I took the pics)

I just took gravities because I couldn't resist.

Batch 1: 1.052
- 099 is steadily chopping it down. It is actually a little slower than I thought. I thought the 099 would go crazy. NOT worried. I did another 099 starter tonight and will probably pitch that Monday or Tuesday night.

Batch 2: 1.136
- Massive US-05 cake is chompin' like mad. You figure from basically 1200 down to 1136 in a little over two days?? Seems like a pretty strong clip.

Like I said at the top... the math isn't dead on exact but if you do some simple calcs, that gives you a current gravity of about 1.094 on the entire batch and again... the bulk of it has only been on the US-05 for two days.

 

[DakotaRules]

Super cool dude!

 

[lastsecondapex]

How far are you going to let it finish out? 1.025? It would be my estimation that 1.020 is attainable with your O2 stone, but some residual sweetness would probably be a welcome characteristic in a 45% beer. I've never had Tactical Nuclear Penguin or STB, but i've heard they are cloyingly sweet to counteract some of the massive alcohol burn.

I suppose you could back sweeten, but that would be very easy to overdo... I realize you said that you just want it drinkable right now, but it seems like such a waste to not have an awesome batch after hitting a mythological number like 1.260...

Best of luck on this! Even if it sucks, I will gladly trade some of my cellared rare commercial brews for a small bottle.

 

[Cape Brewing]

I'm kind of taking a wait-and-see approach. If I actually get it down that dry, then I'll start really thinking about which way I want to go. Right now, I'm just concerned with getting it down from where it is. I would be pretty shocked if it tried getting down below 1025ish but if it does, I'll have to taste it and see.

... and I'm not sure 1260 really should be all that special. I was saying this earlier... the really obnoxiously high OGs are not, in anyway, any more difficult to make than a normal every day 1.050 pale. You just have to boil longer. That's all there is to it.

OK, I take that back, you have to take an occasional gravity so you know here you are. But other than THAT, the only extra work is a longer boil.

Oh, and sure... would love to do a limited amount of trading. Only issue is this "beer" won't be done for a couple of years. I'm planning on aging this for quite a while and depending on how it tastes will dictate exactly how I do it.

 

[bottlebomber]

So what's up

 

[wildwest450]

So what's up

He's still hungover from the baby cubs win last night.


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[Cape Brewing]

I am in San Diego at the NHC.

I'll check where everything is as soon as I get back

 

[wildwest450]

I am in San Diego at the NHC.

I'll check where everything is as soon as I get back

Why would you be there? I thought that was for homebrewers?


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