Combining two beers

Acaciadrian · May 6, 2015

Hello all,
I have been looking around for a couple days now with no luck trying to figure out the process of "combining" beers. What I mean by that is creating two separate beers and then combining them. I have a very solid Rye Ale recipe that I would like to start adding to a couple other brews( pumpkin ale, christmas ale and others) as an experiment but have never tried. Do I make my two separate worts and ferment portions of them together or is it better to brew and ferment them separate and combined them before bottling/kegging? Any advice would be appreciated!!

Qhrumphf · May 6, 2015

What you're thinking of is "blending" and it's a very common procedure.

Brew each beer entirely separately. When they're all fermented and ready to go, get yourself some graduated cylinders, and pull off small measured amounts of each, and evaluate by taste exactly the ratio that you want.

Sir-Hops-A-Lot · May 6, 2015

Do you plan on using the same yeast for both beers? If so then you can combine them before fermenting or make a recipe that is a mix of the two.
Why don't you provide the recipes to get better feedback.
I've combined beers effectively twice but I did so in order to remedy batches that didn't work out as planned. In order to get the proportions right for brewing them as one recipe, you should brew them separately and pour some glasses with different proportions to see how you should make them as a combined recipe.

Acaciadrian · May 6, 2015

Qhrumphf said:
What you're thinking of is "blending" and it's a very common procedure.

Brew each beer entirely separately. When they're all fermented and ready to go, get yourself some graduated cylinders, and pull off small measured amounts of each, and evaluate by taste exactly the ratio that you want.

Thank you sir! So once I have the desired ratio do I then just bottle that ratio together!?

Acaciadrian · May 6, 2015

Sir-Hops-A-Lot said:
Do you plan on using the same yeast for both beers? If so then you can combine them before fermenting or make a recipe that is a mix of the two.

Why don't you provide the recipes to get better feedback.

I've combined beers effectively twice but I did so in order to remedy batches that didn't work out as planned. In order to get the proportions right for brewing them as one recipe, you should brew them separately and pour some glasses with different proportions to see how you should make them as a combined recipe.

I can definitely provide the recipes shortly but I'm at work currently so I don't have access to them. I will be using WLP001 on both brews so I guess that means fermentation could take place together. Did you combined them in primary or secondary?

Qhrumphf · May 6, 2015

Acaciadrian said:
Thank you sir! So once I have the desired ratio do I then just bottle that ratio together!?

Yep. That's it. If it's a 1-5 ratio, then you blend 1 gallon and 5 gallons in the bottling bucket, or whatever the case may be.

Acaciadrian said:
I can definitely provide the recipes shortly but I'm at work currently so I don't have access to them. I will be using WLP001 on both brews so I guess that means fermentation could take place together. Did you combined them in primary or secondary?

If you planned on the same fermentation profile, then yes. But if you planned on fermenting them differently (temp, aeration, pitching rate, etc) then you may still benefit from blending.

The reason why blending is so great is that you can literally obtain a balance and complexity that is physically not possible from a single fermentation.