Awesome efficiency is bad, higher ABV than desired for a lager!

[jatterbury]

Hi Guys,

I brewed a lager recently and my efficiency was much better than expected, so what I had planned to be 4.5% lager is now looking at 6.2% before bottling. The resulting beer is aging in the fermenter and from the samples I have taken its not to my liking, the additional ABV points has created a distinct taste that doesn't suit.

I've tried taking a sample and adding water, it kinda works but as its a lager the malt/hops are a reasonably subdued taste to begin with.

Any ideas on what to do to salvage it? Are there any cheats/shortcuts to adding additional malt flavour? or should I try to turn it into a pale ale of sorts via dry hopping?

 

[bradsbrew]

If you got better efficiency that means that the malt will be up as well. I would bulk prime and water down half of it and bottle half as is. Big breweries have been known to water down post ferment.

Cheers

 

[barls]

if you chose to water down make sure its boiled and cooled to reduce oxygen content.

 

[Adr_0]

Hi Guys,

I brewed a lager recently and my efficiency was much better than expected, so what I had planned to be 4.5% lager is now looking at 6.2% before bottling. The resulting beer is aging in the fermenter and from the samples I have taken its not to my liking, the additional ABV points has created a distinct taste that doesn't suit.

I've tried taking a sample and adding water, it kinda works but as its a lager the malt/hops are a reasonably subdued taste to begin with.

Any ideas on what to do to salvage it? Are there any cheats/shortcuts to adding additional malt flavour? or should I try to turn it into a pale ale of sorts via dry hopping?

Yeah, and if you're putting another 15-20 gravity points on at the start, your hops will be even more out of balance. Can you dry hop? Maybe not with Saaz but with something else: Motueka, Cascade, etc?

 

[Snow]

Call it an imperial lager and change the recipe for next time.....

 

[pajs]

If you can hold the beer for a week or two, you could do a quick brew & ferment of a deliberately 'small beer' to then blend back down your higher alcohol volume.

 

[Lincoln2]

Shandy.

 

[Adr_0]

If you're going to blend, use another similar fermenter and connect the bottom two taps... then open the tap of the "Adding" fermenter and prop it up above the "Adding To" fermenter, and slowly open the "Adding To" tap until the level goes up... e.g. with the airlock still in the "Adding To" fermenter... or better yet, with a 3/8" hose connecting the two airlock grommets.

Everything Starsanned of course...

EDIT: The reason for this is that oxidisation at the end of fermentation is teh bad

 

[brzt6060]

Blend with a low AVB batch or mix with 100plus or something similar.

 

[menoetes]

This just sounds like backdoor bragging about great efficiency to me

...but yeah, water her down to your desired gravity.

If your worried about thinning out the hops, you could throw some more into the additional water as you pre-boil it maybe? Adding hops to the boil just before you take it off the heat and let it cool should be around the same as a 10 - 15 minute addition.

Or use a french press (coffee plunger) and some hops to make a hop tea and add it to your final product after watering it down. Just spit-balling here...