Improving a high gravity recipe

[Orangecrusher]

Back when I started brewing I was feeling cocky and brewed a very high gravity beer that ended up being very hard to drink. I'd like to revisit this recipe and I'm hoping with some help from you, to improve upon the drinkability so I'm asking for suggestions. I copied and pasted it from my vintage Promash program below

Snow Whites Killer Brew (high grav), 07-31-2003

A ProMash Recipe Report

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

Batch Size (Gal): 5.00 Wort Size (Gal): 5.00
Total Grain (Lbs): 18.00
Anticipated OG: 1.127 Plato: 29.46
Anticipated SRM: 8.1
Anticipated IBU: 8.8
Brewhouse Efficiency: 78 %
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: 1.108 SG 25.42 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: Rager

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


Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin Potential SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
50.0 9.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row) Great Britain 1.038 3
11.1 2.00 lbs. White Wheat Belgium 1.040 3
5.6 1.00 lbs. Crystal 10L America 1.035 10
22.2 4.00 lbs. Brown Sugar Generic 1.046 4
11.1 2.00 lbs. Candi Sugar (clear) Generic 1.046 1

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
0.50 oz. Hallertau Pellet 4.20 7.5 60 min.
0.25 oz. Chech Saaz Pellet 3.00 0.9 20 min.
0.25 oz. Chech Saaz Pellet 3.00 0.4 5 min.


Yeast
-----

White Labs WLP500 Trappist Ale

 

[Orangecrusher]

First off I'm thinking I can probably lower the OG a bit to around 1.110

 

[Hammy71]

You have no desire to increase the IBUs to counter act the sweetness? That's a pretty high OG.

 

[Orangecrusher]

Yes, I was just reading an article about an attempt at 25%ABU and his IBU added up to 100!
This was probably one of the problems.
I was not very recipe savvy, and that has not changed a whole lot. lol which is why I'm here.
So what do I even shoot for?

 

[DBhomebrew]

What was your inspiration for the original recipe? Was there a style you were going for?

Looks to me like it's in the direction of a tripel. Maybe look at a tried and true recipe for one of those? It won't be nearly the OG you're looking for, but ~1.080-90 isn't exactly a small beer.

https://www.whitelabs.com/recipes/belgian/belgian-tripel
https://www.google.com/amp/s/beerandbrewing.com/amp/make-your-best-belgian-tripel/
Going smaller would help protect you from the process issues (and undrinkability) that come along with super high OGs too.

 

[Orangecrusher]

yes a strong belgian of somesort

 

[Orangecrusher]

Mainly this is just a show-off brew. I make something incredibly strong and hard to drink and then have fun seeing who I can sucker into drinking it. For me, everything doesn't have to be to the letter.
However, I think you have a very good idea there because I have been interested in doing a tripel and maybe I should start there and then improvise from the tripel when I decide to do a high abv again.

 

[Orangecrusher]

thanks for the links as well

 

[Dgallo]

Do you actually get that high of efficiency in your big beers. My typical 78% efficiency drops to 65% when I go aim above 1.100. Sometimes I will substitute some dme to drop a few lbs of grain to help my efficiency. My biggest suggestion to you would be make sure you have an appropriate pitch rate for your gravity. That is the major component of making solid big beer.

 

[Andres Falconer]

I would like to know what it was about the beer that you found hard to drink. Too sweet/cloying? Something else?

 

[bwible]

You have no desire to increase the IBUs to counter act the sweetness? That's a pretty high OG.

+1

That’s a really high OG with a really low IBU. If we call this a Tripel, GU:BU should be maybe .4. So .4 times your OG 127 would be about 50 IBU. You have 8. That means this is going to seem sickeningly sweet and thick with no bitterness to offset all that sweetness from the malt.

The other thing with this high OG is to pitch enough yeast and oxygenate enough to get a proper fermentation. 5 gallons at 1.127 needs a boat ton of yeast. One package is not going to do it. You can brew a weaker beer of a similar style first, like a Belgian Blonde Ale and then pitch directly onto the yeast cake left over from that. Or make a gigantic starter.

I used to try stuff like this, these days I usually won’t try to push anything past about 1.090.

 

[cmac62]

The last really big beer I brewed was a English Barleywine, and it had more hops in it that almost any beer I have brewed (other than crazy IPAs). Also I would recommend strick temp control during ferm, as any off flavors will be magnified with that big of a beer. I also like the idea of brewing a 1050 beer and pitching your big on right on top of the yeast cake. Good luck

 

[Orangecrusher]

It was almost 18 years ago but I remember the alcohol in it being overpowering. I'm guessing it was maybe an experiment with ingredients I had on my shelf at the time, hence the small amount of hops. But I was just learning how to put a recipe together and not every spec on the sheet was 100% accurate. I definitely wasn't aware of my efficiency at that time so 78% was most likely a guess.
Also, I don't recall having any problem with the fermentation. My hand written notes from that day are long gone unfortunately. That Promash program and the recipes have been transferred to countless computers and memory cards and I think some of the info was lost. It's kinda funny; when I bought it, Promash came to me on two floppy disks lol. I think it still works fine. Just not as flashy as the new progs.

 

[bwible]

Promash was great software back in the day. I didn’t have money to buy that at the time. I had a cheaper program called BrewWizard that ran on a Windows 3.1 laptop. I’m pretty sure that came on one 3 1/2” floppy disk. I’ve dragged a bunch of stuff from computer to computer over the years.

 

[cmac62]

It was almost 18 years ago but I remember the alcohol in it being overpowering. I'm guessing it was maybe an experiment with ingredients I had on my shelf at the time, hence the small amount of hops. But I was just learning how to put a recipe together and not every spec on the sheet was 100% accurate. I definitely wasn't aware of my efficiency at that time so 78% was most likely a guess.
Also, I don't recall having any problem with the fermentation. My hand written notes from that day are long gone unfortunately. That Promash program and the recipes have been transferred to countless computers and memory cards and I think some of the info was lost. It's kinda funny; when I bought it, Promash came to me on two floppy disks lol. I think it still works fine. Just not as flashy as the new progs.

I was thinking maybe the hot alcohol was a result of lack of temp control. Anyway, I hope everything goes well.

 

[Orangecrusher]

Well I'm gonna try to sit down this weekend and work on it and use your suggestions n see what I can come up with.
Thanks for all the input.