Watering Down Beer

[BusinessTime]

Hi All,

I typically brew 20L batches kegging the majority and bottling the remainder. On the weekend I was in a rush to do a brew and i had lent my chest freezer to a friend so i was forced to use a smaller carboy to ferment a 3KG esb pale ale as it was all that would fit in the small fridge I had left.

I assume that since I added less water to the kit than reccomended I am going to end up with a higher gravity beer whih will also be more bitter than intended.

Is it possible to dilute the brewed beer when i put it into a keg (i.e. top it up with a few L of water) and hopefully return it to the right alch% and bitterness?

I may be jumping the gun here but if this turned out ok couldn't it be an easy way to brew larger quantities of beer? (probably too good to be true).

Thanks in advance,
Dave

 

[Sprungmonkey]

Thats what the comercial breweries like XXXX and Fosters do. They do however use more alcohol tolerant yeasts .

 

[BusinessTime]

Thats what the comercial breweries like XXXX and Fosters do. They do however use more alcohol tolerant yeasts .

Cool so assuming the yeast manages to ferment everything out i should be good to water it down a little bit. Luckily its a batch of beer for a party where everyone is prob used to megaswill.

Thanks

 

[Bribie G]

Commercial brewers call it 'over gravity brewing' and I believe it is common in the UK with mass produced brands because for some reason (that completely escapes me :wacko: ) they get away with paying less excise on the beer. It was particularly popular in the days of the fizzy bland keg beers of the 60s and 70s where balance of flavour and hop characters etc. weren't considered too important.

 

[Cortez The Killer]

Tooheys Old is brewed at around 8% and then cut with water

Cheers

 

[DKS]

I assume that since I added less water to the kit than reccomended I am going to end up with a higher gravity beer whih will also be more bitter than intended.


Dave

David just following on from your post Dont mean to hijack
Is this always true, the higher the gravity the more bitter the beer?or just a vague rule of thumb? considering adjuncts Just trying to get a grasp on the balance thing. :icon_cheers:
Daz

 

[BusinessTime]

David just following on from your post Dont mean to hijack
Is this always true, the higher the gravity the more bitter the beer?or just a vague rule of thumb? considering adjuncts Just trying to get a grasp on the balance thing. :icon_cheers:
Daz

No idea about that as a rule of thumb but the beer i brewed was a kit designed to be a particular level of bitterness when diluted with a particular amount of water. Because i didn't dilute it with enough water i'm assuming that it will be more bitter than it was meant to be, likewise with the OG =).

 

[Lobsta]

i see no problem with diluting the batch on bottling day, as long as you keep everything clean, in the same way that people bulk prime...

in fact, that could be a good way for you to take some extra work out of it, work out hom much extra water u need and add the sugar to that, boil it, cool it then add it to ya bottling bucket. and most beer yeasts will take up to around 10% abv, so i dont think that your concentrated brew is gonna kill them.

Lobby

 

[Bribie G]

Just remember to use de-oxygenated water (ie boiled and put in a small 'cube' such as ex-spring water) because the yeast has just been through an anaerobic fermentation and you don't want to be introducing oxygen at bottle stage. I actually do something similar - I ferment to about 22 litres to allow plenty of head space for frothing then after about 4 days top up with enough boiled water to cater for 24 litres (12 PET bottles) and allow say half to three quarters of a litre for dregs left in the bottom of the fermenter. Works fine.

 

[Sprungmonkey]

I worked at XXXX for about a yr doing a research project (for uni) on the effects of high gravity brewing in particular on head retention which is one of the main concerns in the industry. Very interesting I must say - Id never herd of high gravity brewing before and it is amazing to see how common it is in the industry. I don't think there are any beers at XXXX (or CUB) that are made to sales gravity.

 

[michael_aussie]

I found this old posting with the search function.

I'm going to try this.

Who else does this other than BribieG and how much do you dilute?

BribieG said he adds 2 litres to 22 litres.

I was planning to ferment with around 15 litres and then add 8 litres prior to bottling. Is this pushing my luck?

 

[Muggus]

Tooheys Old is brewed at around 8% and then cut with water

Cheers

Never knew that, but it comes as no surprise. Geez, the base beer would be bloody nice though!

 

[Batz]

Never knew that, but it comes as no surprise. Geez, the base beer would be bloody nice though!

Wouldn't be Huggus ! Love to try one of those.


Batz

 

[enuun]

Hi DKS,

The bitterness of a beer depends on how much bittering hops are in there and for how long.
Higher gravity generally means more fermentable and mostly in the form of sugar so it can be cloyingly sweet if not balanced well.
I recently did a 1052 brew, not that high gravity but I had to bitter abit and use yeast nutrients to supercharge the yeast.

David just following on from your post Dont mean to hijack
Is this always true, the higher the gravity the more bitter the beer?or just a vague rule of thumb? considering adjuncts Just trying to get a grasp on the balance thing. :icon_cheers:
Daz

 

[Bribie G]

Wow was I around in 2008? Time flies hey.
Interesting that this thread has re-emerged. As soon as Ross reopens and I can get some stock in, I'm going to do my long planned double-urn batch to fill 3 kegs out of 2 fermenters. So 46 litres brewed overgravity into three 19 litre kegs requres three batches of 3.666666 L of water into each keg. I'm thinking of doing that with three PETs of carbonated mineral water per keg, I could do with some more PETs as that 1.25L size is handy for all sorts of stuff.
Could anyone confirm that soda water / mineral water is devoid of dissolved oxygen?

 

[enuun]

I did not even realise the date!

 

[Rodolphe01]

Wow was I around in 2008? Time flies hey.
Interesting that this thread has re-emerged. As soon as Ross reopens and I can get some stock in, I'm going to do my long planned double-urn batch to fill 3 kegs out of 2 fermenters. So 46 litres brewed overgravity into three 19 litre kegs requres three batches of 3.666666 L of water into each keg. I'm thinking of doing that with three PETs of carbonated mineral water per keg, I could do with some more PETs as that 1.25L size is handy for all sorts of stuff.
Could anyone confirm that soda water / mineral water is devoid of dissolved oxygen?

Can't confirm, but wouldn't imagine that they'd go to the trouble of deoxygenating it.

 

[MHB]

There are a couple of interesting questions in this thread, but we have to look at Kit and AG quite separately as there are a lot of important points to consider that don't quite overlap.

First up for BiribeG can't give you a 100% guarantee that there will be no O₂ in Soda Water. However from what I know I would think it's a pretty good bet, if they leave any O₂ in the water there is a chance of algae growing in the bottles, might sound funny but over the years there have been several recalls of bottle water, because it was turning green.
Most water for the beverage industry these days is fully Ro-Mo cleaned, UV sterilised and Carbonating will also act to expel a lot of O₂.
Personally I would be much more concerned with the impact of the amount of Bi-Carbonate they add to soda water than the O₂ content that will be listed on the bottle and its way higher than what's normal in brewing. You might consider boiling some water, running it into a keg, when it's cool carbonating it and using that as you're dilutant, avoids any issues.

Kit brewing would appear to be the ideal playground for over gravity brewing, and I suppose that within certain constraints it is, but before you start you need to think it through and never forget the first rule of brewing.

Everything you do affects your beer.

A few points to consider:-
Yeast - most brewing yeast will work up to about 8-10% ABV, so you would want to be looking for a change of gravity not more than the yeast can handle so (depending on the attenuation limit of your yeast).
The higher the wort gravity the slower the yeast will work; higher gravity worts require proportionally larger yeast pitch rates.
Higher gravity generally means higher ester and fusel production
High OG worts usually don't attenuate as far (even once diluted), most of these problems can be overcome by really going over the top with your yeast, try four times as much in a 1.100 wort as in a 1.050 wort.
Bitterness yeast will always carry some of the Iso-Alpha into the trub with it, the more concentrated the wort the more it will strip, the less bitter will be the finished beer after dilution. Exacerbated by using really big yeast pitches

The question being 15 L wort, diluted with 8 L post fermentation. Without any other information to go let's assume that we are talking a straight K&K (1.8 Kg of kit and 1 Kg of Dex) gives us an OG of 1.063, you would expect the ABV to be around 4.5% (after dilution), so 6.9% ABV. You're looking for a change of gravity of 51.75 points, so an FG of 1.0125 or an apparent attenuation of 82.143%
In reality it isn't going to happen, the most attenuateive of the dried yeasts available top out at about 80%, some of the high gravity Belgian yeasts in the mid 80's (WY-3787 might reach 86%) under really ideal conditions.

Even if you got it there it won't taste like the beer you started out brewing.
MHB

PS
The Standard dilution equation (C₁V₁=C₂V₂) is really handy

 

[michael_aussie]

...

MHB, I really appreciate you taking to time to answer my question.
I can't pretend that I understand all of the technical details you have included, but I understand the sentiment.
I hope in time, as my brewing knowledge increases, I will understand all of the finer points of your reply.
I cannot overstate the importance of experienced brewers like yourself entering into the discussions with noobs such as myself. Noobs cannot guide and teach noobs. We need you guys. Thank you.

I didn't really think that 8 litres added to 15 would be OK.

I was trying to open discussion and that other brewers would volunteer if they dilute, and if so by how much.
Unfortunately, no one else has come forward.

 

[argon]

I dilute all my batches, but almost always do it into the fermenter before pitching.... Actually waiting for a top- up to cool now.

I've been using 16L cubes (old fresh wort kits) and add 4L of boiling water to the fermenter to cool before pitching the starter and cube. I've recently bought a couple of blue willow cubes that I'll fill to 25 or so on brew day negating the need for a top-up. My beers come out just fine doing this IMHO.

I brew double batches and 32L or so is a good batch size into the cubes for my equipment. Now I have the larger cubes I'll add the water to the cubes when filling from the kettle.

Have a listen to the brewing network podcast on high gravity brewing. Alot of good info there, even on top-up at packaging. Tasty or Palmer do a Bo pils that they dilute 1 for 1. Their preference is to only do it with lagers, something about esters and ales (can't quite remember but I know I found it interesting)