High ABV brew - has it finished?

[fbsf]

Hi all,

I've done a bigish brew for my AG5 - OG was about 1.085 and it's currently sat at about 1.022.

My question is, is it finished? If I put in the average attenuation for US05, it comes out about done, but it still seems quite sweet.

If so, then ok - I'm sure it'll mellow given time, but if it's finished now with the sweetness, is it going to bottle condition and should I be priming, or just bottling as is? Do I even need to think about re-seeding it?

Sorry for the lots of Q's, but this is the first high ABV brew I've done!

 

[phettebs]

How long since you brewed it? Is the gravity changing?

I tend to leave a beer like that in the FV for a good 3-4 weeks before even looking at it.

 

[pittsy]

i would say the yeast is all done at that og , your best method would of been to pitch large , i would pitch more yeast with some nutrient etc and make sure temp right for about days or more .

 

[fbsf]

It's only been going 5 days, I just wanted to make sure it hadn't got stuck at something daft like 1.040 or something which is why I took a reading - it went pretty well at the start, but as the bubbles had died down thought it worth checking.

It'll be left at fermenting temp for at least another 9 days - should it be more then for something of this strength?

I dropped the yeast cake straight off of another pale ale onto this one, so hopefully it should have had enough yeast...

 

[pittsy]

oh in that case just leave it be, all seems well .

 

[fbsf]

You were all right. It's now gone down to 1.015 after 10 days, so it takes a bit longer for a stronger brew - stands to reason.

So how is it going? Well, still young, but you can't half taste the malt and the cascade. Not a giant amount of cascade aroma, but given the amount of fermentation that's taken place in that bucket, I'm not completely surprised. It's not going to pass any feck tests at the moment...

But it's a lovely colour, and at 9.3%, exactly what I was hoping for. I'm probably going to bung this out in the garage until the weekend to chill down before racking to my bottling bucket, and am probably going to dissolve about 50g of sugar in 500ml of boiling water...but then use that sugar solution in a cafetiere with 20g of Amarillo hops as a sort of priming hop tea to replace some of the aromas that have been lost. Any views on this?

Anyway, if nothing else I can confirm that an IIPA or Barley wine *can* be done by BIAB!

 

[JulesRS]

Sounds great, let us know how it turns out. What is your recipe, if you don't mind sharing?

 

[pittsy]

yes it does look tasty and at 9+% wow you won't need many of those, i would say your looking at around 2 to 3 months before that's ready for drinking , i bet you've finished at least a 1/4 of the batch before then "testing it" :grin:

 

[fbsf]

Sounds great, let us know how it turns out. What is your recipe, if you don't mind sharing?

Not at all - it was

4.2kg Maris Otter
250g Caramalt
150g Crystal 60EBC

Mashed for 90 mins at 67C (although I found that to give the strength I wanted, it should have been nearer 5.5-6kg MO. I ended up having to use a kilo of DME to rescue it!)
Boiled for 90 mins with:
20g Magnum FWH
10g Cascade hops @ 30min
20g Cascade hops @ 20min
30g Cascade hops @ 15min
30g Cascade hops @ 10min
40g Cascade hops @ 5min
10g Cascade hops @ 0min

Ended up with about 13L in the fermenter and fermented with US-05, but used a yeast cake from a previous brew, so if using packet, I would make a starter, or at least use two sachets.

yes it does look tasty and at 9+% wow you won't need many of those, i would say your looking at around 2 to 3 months before that's ready for drinking , i bet you've finished at least a 1/4 of the batch before then "testing it" :grin:

I'm planning on it being ready by my birthday (end of May), but with at least half the batch reserved for Christmas, so I'm going to have to restrict my sampling quite a bit!! :

 

[JulesRS]

Thanks. I'm a great lover of Cascade hops... Especially as I recently toured the Sierra Nevada brewery on a recent trip to California. Cascade being a big part of their Pale Ale recipe.

Good luck keeping half 'til Christmas!

 

[Asalpaws]

I was going to suggest dry hopping in a secondary but if your going to keep it till Christmas then the hop aroma would be gone by then anyway. Interesting brew, US 05 is the daddy for making beers that are drier than Oscar Wilde!

I recently used WY high gravity Trappist which got an OG 1090 ish brew down into the teens within a few days but I had US 05 in reserve. It is also gonna need an epic aging period, not sure I can resist.

Thanks for sharing T

 

[fbsf]

No worries AP - I'll be interested to hear how your monster turns out!

Also, I'm going to do an amarillo hop tea with the batch priming sugar solution, so that should add a little aroma/flavour as well.

 

[fbsf]

The amarillo hop tea smelt gorgeous - and having tasted what was left over from the bottling, I really hope it survives the conditioning period, because it tastes great at the moment!

42 300ml bottles done...