Fortifying Beer Hard Stuff

[iBeer]

Has anyone had any good success fortifying beer with hard alcohol? I've got some bottles of hard stuff (whiskey, carabou, ...), that have been sitting around, and I'd like to try adding them to my beer to give it some extra character (not really necessarily to boost the alcohol).
Does anybody have any tips for this? I bottle condition, so I want to keep the % alcohol low so I don't kill off the yeast. How much would you add per 5 gallon batch ... 5 oz, 10 oz ? When would you add it ... in the primary, secondary, or just at bottling?
Thanks!

 

[jelsas]

There's been some talk of soaking oak chips in whiskey and then adding to the secondary:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=23194&highlight=soak+chips+whiskey

Don't know how any of its turned out, but could make for an interesting brew.

 

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

Buy some cheap whiskey, pour into a pot and heat up enough to see vapors coming of but not enough for steam. This will evaporate the alchohol and leave you with whisky flavoring. Then add that to the beer. Adjust to taste.

I'd have a hard time doing that, but if the whiskey was cheap enough....

 

[Evan!]

Oh, am I an expert? One could say that.

What I did was make a malty, low-hopped winter ale. While it was fermenting, I soaked a vanilla bean and 1.5 ounces of oak cubes in 2 cups of Evan Williams. I tasted it along the way, and added real vanilla extract along the way as required. The jar sat in the fridge all week, and by the end, it was hard to dump it into the carboy, because the steeped whiskey tasted so damn fine. But alas. I dumped the whole thing---bourbon, oak, vanilla---into the secondary, then racked the beer on top of it. I let that age for a couple of weeks before I racked again for a week of clarification.

At first, it was very, very harsh because of all the booze. But I tried another bottle last night, and it is DAMN fine stuff, and very ageable. It's like dessert. I highly recommend it. With bottle conditioning, the beer has absorbed and integrated the bourbon, and it's smooth as hell. Anyway, here you go. Do not omit the biscuit, whatever you do. The reason the malt bill is so lengthy isn't the result of some painstakingly detailed process of determining the perfect mix, I was just getting rid of a bunch of stuff that had been sitting in my grain container. But the dark malts and the biscuit are key. The carapils is also integral. if you don't have maltodextrin, you can just increase the carapils amount. The extra body (which is what maltodex does) is definitely a requirement, because a thinner beer can't stand up to the booze, and it'll end up out of balance. Anyway, enjoy!

Evan Williams Fortified Winter Ale

A ProMash Recipe Report

BJCP Style and Style Guidelines
-------------------------------

21-B Spice/Herb/Vegetable, Christmas/Winter Specialty

Min OG: 1.030 Max OG: 1.100
Min IBU: 2 Max IBU: 100
Min Clr: 2 Max Clr: 25 Color in SRM, Lovibond

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (Gal): 5.00 Wort Size (Gal): 5.00
Total Grain (Lbs): 12.00
Anticipated OG: 1.077 Plato: 18.62
Anticipated SRM: 22.3
Anticipated IBU: 25.8
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75 %
Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Pre-Boil Amounts
----------------

Evaporation Rate: 15.00 Percent Per Hour
Pre-Boil Wort Size: 5.88 Gal
Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.065 SG 15.98 Plato

Formulas Used
-------------

Brewhouse Efficiency and Predicted Gravity based on Method #1, Potential Used.
Final Gravity Calculation Based on Points.
Hard Value of Sucrose applied. Value for recipe: 46.2100 ppppg
% Yield Type used in Gravity Prediction: Fine Grind Dry Basis.

Color Formula Used: Morey
Hop IBU Formula Used: Tinseth
Tinseth Concentration Factor: 1.30

Additional Utilization Used For Plug Hops: 2 %
Additional Utilization Used For Pellet Hops: 10 %


Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin Potential SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.1 0.25 lbs. Malto Dextrin North America 1.030 0
41.7 5.00 lbs. Generic LME - Weizen Generic 1.035 7
25.0 3.00 lbs. Generic LME - Extra Light Generic 1.035 7
16.7 2.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row) America 1.036 2
4.2 0.50 lbs. Biscuit Malt Great Britain 1.035 35
4.2 0.50 lbs. Cara-Pils Dextrine Malt 1.033 2
2.1 0.25 lbs. Chocolate Malt America 1.029 350
2.1 0.25 lbs. Coffee Malt America 1.030 350
2.1 0.25 lbs. Melanoidin Malt 1.033 35

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
0.75 oz. Northern Brewer Pellet 6.50 17.1 60 min.
0.50 oz. Goldings - E.K. Whole 6.00 8.8 45 min.


Extras

Amount Name Type Time
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.00 Cup(s) Bourbon Other 21 Days(fermenter)
1.00 Unit(s)Vanilla Beans Spice 7 Days(fermenter)
1.50 Oz Oak Cubes - American, House To Other 7 Days(fermenter)


Yeast
-----

Wyeast N/A Rogue Pacman Ale




Notes
-----

Steep vanilla beans & oak in bourbon during primary fermentation. Add bourbon, vanilla and oak cubes to secondary.

 

[Evan!]

Buy some cheap whiskey, pour into a pot and heat up enough to see vapors coming of but not enough for steam. This will evaporate the alchohol and leave you with whisky flavoring. Then add that to the beer. Adjust to taste.

I'd have a hard time doing that, but if the whiskey was cheap enough....

My guess is he'd want to retain the alcohol from the bourbon, since he's trying to make a fortified beer.

 

[Evan!]

Oh, and one last thing: if you're not a fan of oak, you could reduce the amount of oak cubes by half. I love oaked brews, personally, so I went heavy. But you could do with as little as 3/4oz.

 

[andypantz13]

I'm probably a little crazy for trying this, but I think I'm going to try and do this with a citrusy IPA, some lime, some oak and some añejo tequila. My friends keep bugging me for a tequila beer, so we'll see how it goes. Reading all this certainly helps though.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

I don't think fresh lime will work out too well. Lime goes rancid and gets really nasty, especially when allowed to ferment (imagine the smell/flavor of vomit). Try some dried lime peel or an extract flavoring instead.

For a demonstration of what I'm talking about, squeeze a lime wedge into a glass of water and let it sit overnight at room temperature. Taste/smell it in the morning.

 

[andypantz13]

I don't think fresh lime will work out too well. Lime goes rancid and gets really nasty, especially when allowed to ferment (imagine the smell/flavor of vomit). Try some dried lime peel or an extract flavoring instead.

For a demonstration of what I'm talking about, squeeze a lime wedge into a glass of water and let it sit overnight at room temperature. Taste/smell it in the morning.

Oh yeah, I'm going to use lime peel/lime leaves. I know not to put fresh lime juice in it. Its just the lime flavor I want.

 

[Willsellout]

I will be adding 2 vanilla beans soaked in Knob Creek Bourbon to my next batch of Blonde. I actually got the recipe from brewhead I believe. It's his Pantydropper blonde..only instead of vodka I'm using bourbon. Can't wait to brew it...



Dan

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

I guess I'll chime in with my experience. I made NorthernBrewer's Scottish Ale 80+/-, but played around with the hop schedule and found the finished product to be bland, so I added a half a cup of scotch to the bottling bucket to try and make it a little more interesting.

At first taste, I was horrified at the pure **** I had created. Truly tasted awful. A month later though, it was really really good. I guess the flavors just had to mesh together a little bit more.


Anyway, I wouldn't make the beer again, it was excruciatingly, painfully, uninteresting and boring- even with my additions. Maybe the All Grain version is better? Anyway, although my flavor addition did seem to help the beer, I feel it is wasteful. I would much rather drink a scotch and drink a beer than drink a scotch in a beer. Besides, if you think about it, it's sort of assbackwards. Both historically and flavorwise, it makes little sense. Why am I using such a finely crafted product (even cheap hooch has a carefully guarded recipe) that has spent so much time aging and undergoing carefully controlled distillation, and then adding it back to an undistilled fermented beverage? It just doesn't make any sense... I can't imagine why you would do it except to up the alcohol percentage.

But with that said, I think the addition of the base ingredients is awesome... flavored wood (or soaked cubes to emulate it), fruits, zest, sugar, etc.... that's really cool. Of course, historically, everyone is interested in flavor and taste and alcohol, so it only makes sense to add those things and I think some of the results are awesome.

But adding distilled alcohol just strikes me as bassackwards. I've done it, but I felt kind of silly about it afterwards... But of course, that's just my lesser fraction of a nickel...

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

Oh... I did want to make an exception for the use of vodka when using it to extract bitterness from hops. That seems to make sense to me. Afterall, that's using the vodka as a tool, instead of as a fortifier.

Interesting sidenote: Use vodka with hops and the resulting extraction will be brown. Use everclear with hops and the result is brilliant emerald green. That was just my first experiment though..


I just saw this....

I will be adding 2 vanilla beans soaked in Knob Creek Bourbon to my next batch of Blonde. I actually got the recipe from brewhead I believe. It's his Pantydropper blonde..only instead of vodka I'm using bourbon. Can't wait to brew it...

Using vodka/grain alcohol to extract flavor from the vanilla bean may work, but I'm wondering if the extraction will be greater than it would be just letting the bean soak in the secondary for a few weeks. I suppose it would make it easier to properly "dose" the beer though... but then you use knob creek, so now you are having to dose two flavors that have been premixed.

I don't know that soaking vanilla in alcohol gets you anything more than simply soaking it in water. So in this case, I probably would have put some vanilla beans in the secondary. Then I would have added the knob creek to get the desired level of bourbon flavor. That way, you'd have control of the two variables completely independent of each other, rather than having them premixed.



Anyway, an interesting thing about hops... apparently you can extract more bitterness in alcohol than you can in water (or wort). I really don't know if the same is true for vanilla...

 

[iBeer]

Thanks for all the ideas, it's really appreciated.
Toot, about this being wasteful, I've got some 40's that were filled at a bulk liquor store that we used to drop the cost of the open bar at our wedding. It's not exactly terrible, but I can't bring myself to drink so much - it's just not good enough. It's been sitting there for (hmm let me do the math now...) 6 years, and it isn't going anywhere. I much prefer to sit back and enjoy a beer.
I not necessarily trying to bump up the alcohol content, but if it goes up, so much the better - I just don't want to kill off the yeast. I'm looking to add an extra little flavor to the beer.
Thanks again to all!

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

Thanks for all the ideas, it's really appreciated.
Toot, about this being wasteful, I've got some 40's that were filled at a bulk liquor store that we used to drop the cost of the open bar at our wedding. It's not exactly terrible, but I can't bring myself to drink so much - it's just not good enough. It's been sitting there for (hmm let me do the math now...) 6 years, and it isn't going anywhere. I much prefer to sit back and enjoy a beer.
I not necessarily trying to bump up the alcohol content, but if it goes up, so much the better - I just don't want to kill off the yeast. I'm looking to add an extra little flavor to the beer.
Thanks again to all!

Buy yourself a small glass container. Buy a few oak chips. Toss the bourbon in with the charred oak chips and let it sit there. In a year, 5, 10, the flavors will change and become interesting... or so I hear. Maybe even add it back to a small barrel and let it age some more in a proper oak barrel. Sitting in glass, spirits don't really change flavor much. To "age" a whiskey, it's got to be sitting on oak. So let it do its thing. Buy some chips, and let it soak.


Why take a "special" product (all spirits are special in my book ) and have a "use it up" attitude, when you could take what you've got and potentially make it more special over time? If you don't drink a lot of whiskey, that's even better! Everytime you consume a fifth of whiskey, add another fifth to the barrel and let it keep aging. When people come over, maybe you'll have a very special "house whiskey" to offer people. And, well, if I'm wrong, you can always just throw it into your beer! LOL

I bought a bottle of cheap vodka for mixed drinks. It sucked, even for mixed drinks... so now it has a vanilla bean in it. It's a damned fine vanilla vodka. Way better than the crap you buy at the corner liquor store.


Anyway, I say it's wasteful because the flavors in whiskey can be obtained through the use of oak chips. The oak chips aren't specially processed like the whiskey had been, so use up the oak chips. As for the "special" product, the booze, let it age some more. I'm honestly not trying to be a beer snob or a whiskey snob here. My thinking is more along the lines of "bourbon in this context is really nothing more than diluted oak flavoring. So why not just use the real oak? It's cheaper and more flavorful."