Extract Quad - first try

[bonSreeB]

I'm aiming to make an extract quad recipe and honestly if it tastes half as good as anything on the shelf, I'll be happy.

I know since it's a high grav beer I'll have to use a yeast starter.

I've read it's ok to use tap water to brew and my city has pretty clean water but they add fluoride. From what I've read it seems this would only affect me if I'm doing an all grain brew. Just wanted to check that for correctness, I can buy distilled water if needed.

I was going to use this recipe:

10 lbs dry malt extract

1 lb Belgian Cara-Munich malt

2.5 lbs candi sugar — 30 min.

4 oz chocolate or carafa malt — optional

3 oz Special B malt — optional

4 oz chocolate or carafa malt — optional

6 AAUs pellets or 7 AAUs whole hops — 60 min.

.5 oz Styrian Goldings or equivalent — 15 min.

Large Trappist ale yeast starter

Method:

Steep crushed grain in a large grain bag in 6.5 gals. brewing water (or as much as your brewpot will hold. If necessary, use two pots). Remove grains water reaches 170°. Dissolve malt extract into the brewing water and boil for 90 minutes, adding hops and candi sugar as indicated. Cool to 65°and pitch yeast starter. Aerate thoroughly. O.G. =1.096

Since it's a high grav beer and I'm pretty new to this I figured I would add a yeast started and have found I'll probably need about 1/2 teaspoon at the end of the boil for my 5 gallon batch.

I know that getting the FG low enough will be my biggest problem. I just wanted to make sure everything seemed alright looking. Thanks for any help

I know this is a little bigger beer than most people would start with but I brewed a couple beers a few years ago and my first was a Midas Touch Extract clone attempt and it turned out pretty close("I'd buy it" - DAD and he's never been one to sugar coat things) and 8.5% abv

 

[Whatsgoodmiley]

Proper oxygenation of the wort is essential when making a high gravity beer. I pour from bucket to bucket to aerate my wort. Some people say it'll increase risk to airborne infection but it's the most efficient way I have of aeration. And even with that and a starter, the imperial saison I made last year came out too sweet and under-fermented.

 

[bonSreeB]

Thanks for the advice, I'll be sure to aerate better than a old man's beloved lawn.

I had one more question and this is just for confidence in doing so. I read that when making the starter it's ok to pitch the yeast at 90F and that they propagate best at that temperature. This makes sense from what I took away from microbiology but just wanted to a little confidence boost on doing it, since there's so many red flags saying not to pitch yeast when the wort is too hot.

Thanks again

 

[schematix]

An extract quad? This sounds like a really bad idea.

 

[Whatsgoodmiley]

IMO "too hot" for yeast is really anything over 100-110F. I cool my wort to around 80F, though, for good measure. I'm not big on starters but I'm sure that will be fine. Belgian beers are fermented hotter anyway to promote the formation of esters and other "off-flavors."

Another quick tip is be sure your wort doesn't scorch. Also turn the heat off when adding your extract, and if you're using a burner and you have a thinner bottomed pot, the heat will localize on smaller areas of the bottom of the pot, leading to more scorching of the wort. I had that issue with my imperial saison as well... The caramelization of the malt sugars also contributed to it being too sweet, under fermented, and too dark a color (brown). I'm pretty sure scorching the sugar forms larger complex sugars that yeast can't break down.

Anytime I catch myself worrying too much over a brew, I remind myself people have been doing this without Star San or fancy equipment for thousands of years..... Then I post about it on this forum anyway.

 

[Whatsgoodmiley]

Check out this article for other tips:

https://beerandbrewing.com/VJilnisAACgA3TtS/article/defy-gravity-brewing-high-gravity-beers

An extract quad? This sounds like a really bad idea.

Can you offer a reason?

 

[schematix]

Can you offer a reason?

These types of beers made by newer brewers quite frequently turn into other threads such as:

1. HELP! My beer won't go below 1.040!
or
2. HELP! My beer tastes like lighter fluid.

My suggestion for new brewers is to keep all brews below 1.060. If you just can't control yourself, at least don't go over 1.070. Sure you'll make beer, but it won't be half as good as what you can buy.

 

[Whatsgoodmiley]

Gotta learn sometime. The imperial saison I keep referring to was my third brew and, yes, 50% of the bottles were undrinkable (the other half were great), however, I learned a lot about brewing the style! Gotta fail to get better

 

[schematix]

Gotta learn sometime. The imperial saison I keep referring to was my third brew and, yes, 50% of the bottles were undrinkable (the other half were great), however, I learned a lot about brewing the style! Gotta fail to get better

Understand that it is important to learn from your mistakes, but also there is collectively a lot of experience around here that would say this is a bad style for a beginner.

But hey, if you like half your beer to be undrinkable, then by all means...

 

[Whatsgoodmiley]

I do, thanks

 

[schematix]

I do, thanks

 

[bonSreeB]

Since it's an extract brew, I think I'll try some sort of attachment on the end of my tubing when I transfer to my carboy to aerate and think shake some as well. I'll let you guys know how it goes, thanks for all the help

 

[IslandLizard]

Understand that it is important to learn from your mistakes, but also there is collectively a lot of experience around here that would say this is a bad style for a beginner.

But hey, if you like half your beer to be undrinkable, then by all means...

^ Listen to him ^

I do, thanks

Alright, all said and done, keep us posted for the record!

 

[IslandLizard]

Since it's an extract brew, I think I'll try some sort of attachment on the end of my tubing when I transfer to my carboy to aerate and think shake some as well. I'll let you guys know how it goes, thanks for all the help

Aerate? You need to oxygenate! Way above 8 ppm and pitch a starter that shines. That may get it down to 1.030. Drinkable, but not better than 10% of what's on the shelf.

Let's be positive... Why not brew a good Dubbel instead? Very attainable with controlled fermentation and patience. Notch it up to a 1.085 if you want and don't mind some residual sweetness in the end. I've done 1.070 extract IPAs that ended at 1.014 without any sugar to help them along. Good Abbey yeast, big starter, and use that whisk right after pitching.

 

[bonSreeB]

"I thought this was America,huh, I thought this was America"

-Randy Marsh

 

[bonSreeB]

Quick question...I used a calculator and found that for a 5 gal batch, the starting specific gravity of this beer will be ~1.107. This seems too high for the yeast to start working. I put the efficiency for the sugars at 100%, I think I remember reading that all of them aren't necessarily 100%. Any help would be great as I'm planning to make this beer this weekend.

I was thinking I could add a pound of the candi sugar after the first couple of days of fermentation but if that's the case how to I sanitize it?

Thanks for any help guys. I know everyone has said I will likely fail but I've been reading furiously, cleaning thoroughly, and am going to make a gallon yeast starter. I even went ahead a sprung for the aquarium pump to aerate the wort properly and got the hepa filter.

 

[Whatsgoodmiley]

Maybe you could boil the sugar in some water and make a syrup out of it?

 

[PADave]

I just have to ask why? Why wouldn't you figure out what you are doing with a easier beer, get your process down, then try something more challenging? You got to learn to crawl before you run. But hey, guess you're going to do what you got your mind set on.

 

[bonSreeB]

Ok, the syrup idea was all that I could think of. Maybe I'll try that with 1lb of the candi sugar. The reason I don't want to try a weaker style is I don't like much weaker styles. I really like big stout and porters but I also like tripels and quads. Not to try and sound too much like I'm just drinking to catch a buzz but I don't like weaker beers because I have to drink more of them to catch one. I really like to just sit and sip off one or two big beers. I don't end up feeling bloated, less hungover feeling, and I just like it them more. After this first try, I'll probably make some other beers in smaller batches to train a little better, I just got the idea in my head and like you said I'm running with it.

 

[bonSreeB]

ALright everyone, thought I'd everyone a run down of what I did so hopefully I know I did everything or right or you guys can give me a good ole "I told you". Honestly I just want to learn so bring it to me.

I made a gallon yeast starter Thursday night with 1lb of DME and pitched my WPL500 yeast at about 85 degrees after using my aquarium pump to aerate for about 20 min. I used an airlock which I've learned since to just use sanitized foil next time. Let that sit until Sunday morning and cold crashed it all day and night.

Early Monday morning got the yeast out and decanted the liquid and let it sit out while brewing to warm up to pitch temperature. I steeped the grain at 160-165 and then rinse with a gallon of 165 degree water. I then added another 4.5gal of water to reach a 6.5gal boil volume and added all of the DME. I have seen to add some close to the end of the boil, thoughts?

I stirred my boil every few minutes to keep anything from burning, but I've seen since this may not have been proper, thoughts? and cut the flame when I added to candi sugar to keep it from scorching.

I managed to cool the wort to 85 degrees without agitating it at all in about 45min; a little too long, but without a wort chiller as fast as I could. This is where I kind of went wrong, I siphoned to my carboy and had a little rush induced because of family time. I aerated with an aquarium pump at this temp after doing some quick research and finding that 86degree was listed in a study as the bottom end of HSA reactions. Please let me know if I'll have some high ABV cardboard? I ran out of time after aerating and had to leave for a couple hours so I sealed the carboy with sanitized plastic wrap and had to leave for 2 hours.

After coming back the wort was about 76degrees. I pitched my yeast starter slurry and since I had another pack of the WLP500 which I had let sit out and come to room temp since the morning, I pitched that too thinking it couldn't hurt me to pitch too much yeast. I now have to carboy with a t-shirt on and a blow off tube since the OG is 1.096 which is exactly what the recipe called for

Please let me know if I did anything stupid or could've done anything better. I tried to name all my steps on things that can be easily messed up or possibly done wrong.

PS-With anything that touched wort after the boil it was cleaned with PBW, the soaked in Star-san, and rinsed with distilled water that had any opening where water comes out spritzed with Star-san. Basically I did rinse the Star-san but was meticulous about things being sanitized, anything that touched anything that touches wort was sanitized.

 

[PADave]

Don't rinse the Star-san.

 

[bonSreeB]

The only reason I did was because a beer I did a few years ago I didn't rinse and it has a slightly metallic taste which I looked around on the Internet and found other reporting that from not rinsing. Is this true ever or was it something else I did? Would it be possible to do a lighter concentration of star San to possibly avoid this if the containers are extremely well cleaned?

 

[msayler]

As long as you're properly measuring your concentrate/water dilution of Star San, you'll never get weird flavors from leaving the minuscule amounts on your equipment. In fact, I've seen anecdotes on the forum of brewers accidentally leaving (comparatively) massive amounts in their beer, and still coming out with perfect brew. Rinsing it off will only up the risk of infection. Don't fear the foam!

 

[PADave]

The only reason I did was because a beer I did a few years ago I didn't rinse and it has a slightly metallic taste which I looked around on the Internet and found other reporting that from not rinsing. Is this true ever or was it something else I did? Would it be possible to do a lighter concentration of star San to possibly avoid this if the containers are extremely well cleaned?

I'm going with something else you did.

 

[bonSreeB]

Haha alright thanks guys, I'll be sure to leave it next time, so far my beer is bubbling well, the hydrometer appears to be at about 1.040-1.050 after 48hrs since I pitched, it started at 1.096.

 

[bonSreeB]

Update: Beer is currently at 1.017 after 12 days of primary fermentation. I was going to move it to secondary after the third week. I plan on adding about 12oz of tart cherry concentrate and 1/2oz of oak chips soaked in 8oz of devils cut bourbon for a couple days to the secondary. I planned on letting the secondary sit for 3-4 weeks and then bottling. Do you guys think those amounts will be enough to have a slight cherry and bourbon flavor to it? It's 5gal worth of beer.

 

[Northbank]

Star San is no-rinse sanitizer and as far as I know as soon as you rinse it off whatever you are handling is more likely to pick up air born bugs and bacteria than if you'd simply left it unrinsed. This is more of a FYI than a red flag, you are basically just wasting water for no reason and possibly to your detriment.

I'm working through my IPAs, Lagers and Porters while I get my technique down and learn what I am doing. Stupid might be ignoring the advice of those that have already walked this path Time will tell huh?

(Sorry, replied to an older message without realizing)