Secret to high gravity brewing

[hoppyscotty]

Brewed our annual big imperial stout over the weekend. The plan, as with last years, is to brew around feb/march, leave it to condition until December, soak some bourbon oak chips in there, or whatever we fancy for a couple of weeks, then re-awaken with bottling yeast and sugar when we bottle.

Last years was a corker, though probably needs even longer to mature but we missed our target numbers. Was aiming for 12% ended up with 10% but the brewday was a challenge doing a re-iterated mash in a Brewzilla.

This year did a bigger single infusion mash on the bigger 3 vessel system, so a simpler mash, but still ended up short. Everything did get very very sticky towards the end and I'm wondering if that has something to do with it. Maybe I need to use more water in the mash or something? The final runnings off the sparge were 1.050 so plenty of sugar left behind in the grains.

Anyway I appreciate these beers do offer more of a challenge but just winding if there are any tips and tricks with these big beers.

Thanks.

 

[Nicks90]

I recall seeing a thread on an American forum I frequent, where they discussed and several swore was the best way for a reliable big beer is doing a much simpler potential 7-8% mash, then wanging in a kilo of dme at the end of the boil to achieve the desired 'big beer' status abv

All the rest of the grain bill was as you would expect in terms of adjuncts etc, just a lot less malt and hence simpler single mash process
Is it cheating? Probably...

I will do a search in a bit to see if I can find the link

 

[prog99]

I recall seeing a thread on an American forum I frequent, where they discussed and several swore was the best way for a reliable big beer is doing a much simpler potential 7-8% mash, then wanging in a kilo of dme at the end of the boil to achieve the desired 'big beer' status abv

I've done that in the past and it worked well.

 

[Clint]

Silver Spoon...

 

[RoomWithABrew]

@hoppyscotty
I found my Imperial stout a challenge as well. From listening to a lot of CBandB podcasts, quite a few on barleywines the pros seem to take the attitude of fill your mash tun to the brim with grain and a stiff mash and that's your gravity, sparge a bit.
Partigyle the rest.
They do use long boils as well if they are short on gravity. I didn't hear them mention adding DME.

I made the brew dog imperial stout and had to add dextrose at the end of ferment as part of the process.
But it seems you have to accept very poor brew house efficiency around 50% with these big beers.

I will mash longer next time I make it, spend longer at mash out to ensure everything is fully heated, not mill my rye to block every hole in the bottom of the malt pipe and boil for longer. I get very little loss at the boil with the condenser I have on my system and might take the lid off to increase loss and boil more aggressively to get some maillard.

 

[allotment_fox]

I've added Belgian dark Candy Sugar at he end of the boil and yeast nutrient together with high gravity Ale Yeast (white labs) got 10.5 %

 

[dad_of_jon]

brew 22 -king kong Black top

10/09/2016
2kg extra dark dme
1 kg medium
1 kg ex light
500g dwe
500g candi dark
450g golden syrup
500g aromatic malt
500g dark crystal
250g roasted barley.
250g caramunich iii
20.5 litres - OG 1.108
01/10/2016
1.010 - fg
12.86%

All I did was use a single packet of mj's french saison re-hydrated which is good for 14%. The grains had a 90 min mash at around 67c

I use lots of DME and sugars or the grainbill would be too much for my kit. I've been hitting the big numbers quite easily with DME.

 

[allotment_fox]

Also to add to my earlier post you can always add extra sugars dme and the like further along the fermentation time line say two / three weeks in

 

[clib]

I don't make very strong beers but I've done the maths and read plenty about it and I think there are two options, which have both been mentioned. Either make up your gravity with malt extract and maybe other sugars. Or make two beers from one mash, a strong one with first runnings and and weaker one with additional sparging. So enough grain for two beers. If you can fit it in with the mash water required.

 

[Clarence]

Most of my beers are brewed in a 15½ Litre (to the brim) pot and diluted back to 20 litres so I' used the liquoring back to target gravity rather than target volume. I usually end up somewhere between 19½ litres and 22 litres as it happens. While I've little interest in drinking 12% abv, the partigyle system seems the most logical way forward especially if you brew the first batch short and then liquor back to target OG. If you go along this route, remember to compensate for the reduced utilisation of the bittering hops.

 

[Pennine]

I have gone the other way, and brew two reasonable size mashes when I have done a reiterated mash. Getting your crush down is also important with these and I would consider conditioning your grain. A normal sparge maybe a bit extra on the second is usually enough. If you are at too low of a gravity reading then, just add some time to the boil.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

For my 12%-14% Imperial I do two mashes (no sparge) and combine the two batches of wort into one 3-hour boil. Toward the end I add 1-2Kg of light DME to get the gravity where I want it.

I do two mashes because my little Cygnet can only take about 5.5Kg grain so two mashes are needed to get the volume and the gravity.

No sparge because that just dilutes the wort and I’m trying to raise the gravity.

I can’t do a boil of more than 3 hours at this gravity because the wort is so syrupy that it coats the heating element and causes persistent tripping of the cut-out.

So you’ll see for me a double mash, long boil, and the addition of DME are all required.

Worth it though!

 

[MrRook]

I've done that in the past and it worked well.

That's one option, or brew a smaller batch with the same amount of grains.

 

[floydmeddler]

I've gotten big OGs by sparging loads and boiling for a long time. Time consuming, yes. However, I'm happy to put aside a day as I know a 12+% beer is going to provide me with months (years potentially!) of joy and happiness. :-)

 

[dad_of_jon]

I've gotten big OGs by sparging loads and boiling for a long time. Time consuming, yes. However, I'm happy to put aside a day as I know a 12+% beer is going to provide me with months (years potentially!) of joy and happiness. :-)

agreed - its a lot of effort but I still have 10%+ beers from march 2020

 

[Agentgonzo]

agreed - its a lot of effort but I still have 10%+ beers from march 2020

I have a lot of 8-10% beers in the garage, and I'm running out of bottles to put fresh beer into . But it's hard drinking 500ml of 10% beer in a week night just to get an empty bottle...

 

[private4587]

I'm very interested in the brews of higher % beer, those who mentioned doing a reiterated mash could you please let me know your method. I have a brewzilla 3.1.1 and use Brewfather as my software but I'm unable to get my head around the water volumes required for mash and sparge

 

[dad_of_jon]

I have a lot of 8-10% beers in the garage, and I'm running out of bottles to put fresh beer into . But it's hard drinking 500ml of 10% beer in a week night just to get an empty bottle...

agreed, so I just bought 4 erdinger in Asda for £6. - 5.3% the labels soak off easy , the free beer is good and a quick boost to my 500ml bottles