Super High Gravity Brew .... Again

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Bombo80

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So I have decided to try and brew another super high gravity beer. Still in the planning stage but having some issues with the IBU's. More on that in a bit.

The recipe .....
20# 2-row malt
5# 6-row malt
2# Crystal 60*L
2# Munich malt 10*L
2# Smoked Malt
2# Maple Syrup - added during active fermentation

1 oz HBC 682 20.4% AA - 60 min.
1 oz Columbus 10.4% AA - 60 min.
1 oz Loral 19.9% AA - 60 min.
2 oz Warrior 16.7% AA - 60 min.
3 oz Simcoe 13.0% AA - 60 min.
3 oz Saaz 3.5% AA - 30 min.
3 oz Fuggles 4.0% AA - 15 min.
3 oz Cascade 7.0% AA - 1 min.

WLP 099 Super High Gravity Ale Yeast
Started early and stepped up to a half gallon starter, or bigger.

Start with one gallon of wort and pitch the starter. Add wort a quart at a time, twice daily, during active fermentation. Once all the wort has been added, have a second yeast starter ready to pitch, then start the maple syrup additions (two at 1 pound each). Monitor fermentation and use EC1118 in a starter, if needed.

I am looking to get 4 gallons of wort out of this huge grain bill. 75% efficiency, even though my last 6 beers were well over 85%.

My last try at this was very under hopped. That is why I have all these hops to bitter and balance the sweetness. As well as more for flavor and aroma. Shooting for about 150 IBU's.

Here is my problem .....

Beersmith - 1.228 OG - 162.1 IBU
Brewtarget - 1.215 OG - 134.2 IBU
Biermacht - 1.250 OG - 218.5 IBU
Wort - 1.250 OG - 408.2 IBU

I have always used Beersmith, but after reading other threads about the IBU discrepancies with otherbrew calculators, I don't know what to do, or which to use.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. :rock:
 
So, what exactly are you going for? The recipe seems interesting. Smoked malt, maple syrup and an epic ton of hopping? Why the 6-row? You shouldn’t have conversion problems with your grist. Is this an imperial amber ale or some sort?

Unless you want a lot of hop flavor, just stick with a single hop variety or two and just increase the quantity early on. Such as say, 3 or 4oz of Columbus at 60min and be done. Your losses for hops alone for this one will be quite huge.

FWIW, my big beers 1.120+ have been sub 60% efficiency… I think going for 75% is very optimistic, personally, for a beer that big. But if you have done beers this big with 75% in the past, then never mind!

Don’t put so much weight into IBU calculators… IBU’s dwindle the closer you get to 100… What may have a theoretical IBU of 400 may only test to an actual 75.

If you had too much sweetness before, mash low (148F for example) and for a longer period of time. You need your FG to be lower relative to your bittering.

I would recommend using pure oxygen to oxygenate your beer prior to yeast pitch (90-seconds worth) and again 8-12hrs later for another minute. The yeast will need to prep for that big of a beer.

Hope this helps some.
 
As someone who does high gravity/high alcohol beers quite often I'm gonna tell you right now to completely skip the EC-1118, it won't help you much. WLP099 can be very finicky so if you can access something else I highly recommend that. My go to is TYB Dry Belgian but if you already have the Super High Gravity try to start at a lower OG and do a lot of smaller, more frequent sugar additions.

Also, what's your target ABV?
 
I don't have the yeasts yet. I am planning on brewing the end of July. SWMBO is out of town for a week.
:ban: I will look into that dry Belgian. Suggestions on any others that might work ? I could pick up a distillers turbo yeast.

My last one stalled at 1.090 for 2 years. I then brewed a 2 gallon batch of barleywine, at 1.090, and added the stalled wort to the fully active barleywine, half gallon at a time. That one ended at 1.024.

So if I could end up around 1.020, I would be happy.
 
Invertalon, I am trying for more hop flavor and aroma, as well as more bitterness. My last one was very much lacking in all aspects of the hops. The strange assortment of hops is because I want to use what I already have in the freezer.

I also have pure O2 and will definitely use that. Thanks for the reminder.
 
I was going to comment on your ridiculous hop schedule but makes sense if you're just using them up.
 
You have such a strong wort that it inhibits the alphas from isomerisation. I would boil the hops in plain water and then use this water for mashing. You will obviously loose some of the IBUS during mashing as a bit will attach to the grain but I think this loss is minor compared to what is NOT going into solution if you just boil the hops in the strong wort.

Plain water in general gets the maximum IBU amount possible out of hops. So this is what I would do....
 
God speed sir!
Screenshot_20180504-151236.jpeg
 
I don't have the yeasts yet. I am planning on brewing the end of July. SWMBO is out of town for a week.
:ban: I will look into that dry Belgian. Suggestions on any others that might work ? I could pick up a distillers turbo yeast.

My last one stalled at 1.090 for 2 years. I then brewed a 2 gallon batch of barleywine, at 1.090, and added the stalled wort to the fully active barleywine, half gallon at a time. That one ended at 1.024.

So if I could end up around 1.020, I would be happy.
Hmm, that would put you around 13-14% abv. With a nice low mash temp you could actually use Chico but the Rochefort strain (WLP540/WY1762) is a killer yeast for malty beers and has great alcohol tolerance. Dry Belgian is a diastatic yeast so it'll keep chomping until there's nothing left.

Don't use turbo yeast, it struggles with malt sugars and ruins your flavor profile. If you're using multiple yeast strains WY3711 is also fantastic for helping big beers attenuate.
 
Let's say you could actually get a 1.225 starting wort, and get it to attenuate to 1.020. Using the alternate (high gravity) formula of this calculator would put your ABV at around 36% (although I'm sure the curve fit formulas used have been extrapolated well beyond anything reasonable.) I don't think there is any yeast that can survive at anywhere near that level.

I'm also curious how you plan to get to your target starting OG, as it seems implausible. Would you be willing to post your assumed strike, sparge, pre-boil and post-boil volumes? I'd like to run them thru my simulator to see what happens.

Brew on :mug:
 
Thanks Doug. I have never used the "alternative" option in the calculator.

I have tweeked my efficiency, and have been getting very high numbers (90%) lately, on several consecutive batches.

With that in mind, I keep adjusting my malt content. As I don't want to be way over the top on the gravity. I am shooting for 1.222 OG, just to pick a number. I understand all the concerns of being higher than that. And don't want to "just do it", and waste malt in the process. I am confident in my brewing process, and should expect the numbers I am looking for.
Yeah, it's going to be a long brew day, but I like that !!!

So I am using a lot of information from the 21% alcohol beer, from Brew Your Own. I will change things up this time, and use the beano in the mash. Start with a protein rest at 120, then up to a low sac rest at 140, and finally to 154 for at least 60, but probably 90 minutes. I want a highly fermentable wort.

I am most likely going to do a split mash, because of mashtun space. I will start the fermentation with one gallon, and can the rest in quart jars. I will start my yeast starter a couple days before brew day. Stepping it up to 1 - 2 liters, or more.

Once the fermentation is fully active, I will start adding the extra wort, twice a day, until it is all incorporated into the primary. During that time, I will make another large starter to pitch after all the wort is in the primary, and I am ready for the maple syrup.

Two one pound additions of maple syrup, and I will monitor the fermentation. If I see it slowing too early, I will start another yeast starter of EC1118, to try and get it to finish.

Beyond that, this is another experimental brew. Hopefully everything will work out, and I will have another awesome brew.
 
I brewed a beer recently with K1V-1116 yeast and it turned out really good. K1V has an alcohol tolerance of 18%, it can eat maltotriose, and it's POF-. Seems like a good choice for a very-high gravity beer.
 
That's definitely doable, your only real yeast options at that point are gonna be Dry Belgian and WLP099. Small, frequent sugar additions will be your best friend and don't be afraid to rouse the yeast as well as oxygenate periodically. On the other side of the coin I've never been able to brew a beer above 20% that had a good hop profile. If I were to hazard a guess it could be that the high alcohol messes with the perception of hop flavor.

Not sure if you've seen it but here's a good read:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjAKegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw0EnmY1IW5VnQMGt0kX6A00
 
Thing about WLP099 is that it seems to be a multistrain, a wine yeast (which has the alcohol tolerance) and a yeast that seems to be more of a conventional beer yeast, but which is diastaticus (which gives you the attenuation before it gets poisoned by the alcohol). I've not used it but I imagine that it would repay some careful thought on how you build it up in starters.

Distilling yeasts don't have a great reputation for beer making but as it happens I've got WLP050 Tennessee fermenting a beer at the moment, it might be an option, I'll let you know what it tastes like. It's POF- and meant to be pretty clean, it's a distant relative of Windsor. Not sure what its ABV limit is though and its a Vault strain.
 
Hello again !!
Time for an update ......

I adjusted the grainbill just a bit by lowering the 2-row down to 16 pounds. The rest stayed the same.
My hops changed slightly too. Dropped the 1oz. Columbus for 1oz. Simcoe CryoHops. Got these at Homebrew Con in Portland, OR.

So I split the grains into two separate mashes. I underestimated the amount water I needed, but not by much. I added 17qts. treated RO water, ammended to the Edinburgh water profile.
Mashed at 120* for 30 minutes, raised the temp to 140 for 60 minutes, and then heated again to 154 for another 60 minutes.
Prepared 3.5 gallons sparge water treated using the Bru 'n water spreadsheet.
Collected 17qts wort after vorlaufing the wort. Allowed this wort to cool to 128* and used it as the water for the second mash. I followed the same mash schedule as the first mash and sparged with 3.5 gallons treated water, vorlaufed and started adding to the remaining wort from the first mash. All was going well until this sparge session. I had the worst stuck sparge ever. I ended up reheating the mash and batch sparging, and it still was a long sparge session.
Once I had all the wort in the boil kettle, I had ~8.5 gallons of wort. I took a pre-boil gravity, but don't have my notes with me. I used a small fan to help with the evaporation and to help prevent any boil over. That worked like a champ. Since I was running short on time, I just filled quart jars and hot water bathed the whole batch of wort. I allowed this to cool overnight.
My evaporation was higher than I anticipated, and ended up with 3.5 gallons of canned wort.
Not a problem in my book. With everything put into this brew, I ended up with exactly 75% efficiency. Just what I hoped for.
I started my yeast starter 3+ days before mash day. I stepped it up gradually to a 2 liter starter, and then poured off a pint to use as the 2nd starter, and topped the flask back to the 2 liter level and let is stay on the striplate until I was ready to pitch.
To get my OG, I tried the hydrometer, but it was to high, and there were no numbers on the hydrometer where the wort level was. So I took 5ml of wort with 5ml distilled water, mixed it and put a few drops on my refractometer. It read 22.3 Brix. So according to what I have read, you just double this and you will have your true reading. 44.6 Brix, or 1.203. Just where I was expecting it to be.
I opened 1 gallon of the wort and put it in my primary and aerated with pure O2 as well as stirred like crazy with an 18" commercial whisk, then incorporated the 2 liter starter. I waited 24 hours and had a very good fermentation going, so I started the twice a day additions of 1 qt of the canned wort.
I aerated each jar of wort prior to adding it to the fermenting wort. I also whisked up a good head in the primary. I continued this until I finished adding all the canned wort. I also ran out of O2 about half way through the wort additions.
I also added some yeast energizer and yeast nutrient on day 4 and Day 8.
On Day 5, I started the second starter. I followed the same step up procedure I used for the initial starter, except I used some of the canned wort diluted 50% with RO water. My thoughts were this starter will be around 1.100, and prepare the yeast for the high gravity and alcohol of the fermenting wort.
I added this 2nd starter on Day 7. On Day 8 I decided to take a gravity reading. It was at 1.050. Pretty darn good if you ask me. I also started the first maple syrup addition, 1 pint, and another pint this morning. I have 3 more to go.

So, that is where I am at. Everything looks good, and is progressing better than I could have asked for. I will update again once I let the fermentation finish.

Cheers !!
 
So I finally got around to checking on this. Unfortunately it stalled after the last maple syrup addition. It was about 1.050 prior to adding the last pint of maple syrup. It didn't move in weeks, and the gravity was back up to 1.090. :(
I had the yeast cake off an experiment. So I decided to dump that whole thing into the carboy. There was some activity, but not much. I let it sit for a couple more weeks, and finally got around to measuring it last night. It was at 1.082. The taste was very nice and not cloying sweet, like you would think.
I will leave it alone for for another month. If it has not changed, I will probably do a small batch of barleywine and feed this into it, to get it to finish.
More to come.
 
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