What is your strongest all grain brew EVER?

[takai]

I brewed a 12.3% (higher ABV bottled) on Australia Day, 10.8kg of grain into the urn, using all 43L of volume.

Bag sparged as well to get the volume back.

Ended up at 1.113 OG with 1.019 FG with a 15g pack of US05

 

[joshuahardie]

10.8% triple is the highest I have gone.

 

[Black n Tan]

What volume did you get? 100mL

44L my friend, no RIS for you is the case swap!

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

Nooooooooooo! After devouring your hazelnut brown at the swap before last I am very keen to try your RIS! I am worthy!!

 

[Black n Tan]

A reprieve then. I am just about to bottle this years hazelnut brown ale.

 

[yankinoz]

1092. Scotch Ale/Porter.

Brew-day was a completely psycho WotHogs "do" that I hosted. Just about everything that could go wrong, did.

I think I got about 20Kg of grain into my mash-tun & very little water & it was absolutely full to the brim. It coped (just) but I wouldn't really want to repeat the experience in a hurry.

It was dumped onto the lees from a previous batch of porter (Peet's Irish Ale yeast, which I think was the same as Wyeast 1084 - a feral beast!). Fermentation went for about 5-6 months (primary/secondary/cold conditioning) before I bottled it. It took a couple of years to come-good.

Final product won multiple State/Nationals & one International (Tri-Nations) prizes. It took about 8 years before it was showing it's age & started to drop-off.

It was a real exercise in patience.

How constant was your storage temperature and what was the temperature or temperature range?

 

[MartinOC]

How constant was your storage temperature and what was the temperature or temperature range?

Original fermentation was at ambient September/October temperatures in Melbourne for about a week. I got seconded with my job to Canberra for 8 weeks, so I dumped the whole lot (still very actively fermenting) into a 45L Post-mix keg & left it in my fridge at about 4C until I got back.

I left it in the keg (occasionally letting-off pressure & sampling...of course!) until the following February, when I CPBD'd it.

After that, it was kept in the bottles in my (insulated) garage at ambient. 'Didn't seem to hurt it one bit, given the prizes it got...

The lesson I learned from this was the benefit of using a VERY strong/resilient yeast & cold-conditioning in bulk for an extended period before packaging.

PM me if you want the recipe. I've posted it up here many times & lots of folks have asked for it, so it's a simple cut-paste job for me. I've got nothing to hide & happy to share.

 

[Topher]

I brewed a 12.3% (higher ABV bottled) on Australia Day, 10.8kg of grain into the urn, using all 43L of volume.

Bag sparged as well to get the volume back.

Ended up at 1.113 OG with 1.019 FG with a 15g pack of US05

That's an amazing effort.

 

[oglennyboy]

6 months ago around xmas 5 of us each did a big barley wine for a long secondary ferment in a Larks barrel. Bottling happens next weekend, hoping it's sitting around 11% or so.
My portion was 11.25kg of grain as a single infusion BIAB effort in a 44 litre urn with ZERO headspace. Took about 8 hours on brew day, all the usual palaver culminating with the god damn bag being too heavy to lift out and resulting in scooping grain out with a colander into another strainer
Gravity was 1.078 before the boil, after a coupla hours ended up with 19 litres into the fermenter at 1.102. So much trub! Like 6.5 litres.
No DME, dex etc but I don't reckon I'd be doing it this way again, too hard. Tasted freaky strong after 3 weeks in primary down to 1.026, and the word from the fella who had the barrel with all the others in it was that it kept bubbling for a good few weeks.
Have a bottle I kept aside to condition with no sugar added, will crack it in another 6 months on the anniversary of brewing to see how it compares to the blend.
cheers!

 

[hwall95]

I brewed a 12.3% (higher ABV bottled) on Australia Day, 10.8kg of grain into the urn, using all 43L of volume.

Bag sparged as well to get the volume back.

Ended up at 1.113 OG with 1.019 FG with a 15g pack of US05

Out of curosity, what'd you mash at mate? That's awesome attenuation for a RIS, especially for one pack of us05! By the looks of it, I'm sure it smelt awesome while mashing and boiling, and even more once drinking :icon_drool2:

 

[Markbeer]

I do 1120 biab 24l into fermenter from crown urn.

Split boil 3 ways. triples your evaporation.

and age for over 18 months.

They are my tips.

 

[waggastew]

Recently brewed my 100th batch, but only my 6th brew on my newish full volume 3V gravity system. It is an American Barleywine, I hit 1.100 but only with the help of some DME.

Brewday went fine except it was the first time I have used whole cone hops on that system. They were homegrown and tied in with the whole 100th Anniversary thing. Getting it into the fermenter was a BIG pain!

Dumped it onto 1L of US05 yeast from a Pale Ale. Fermented down to 1.024 in 9 days so pretty happy with that. It is now cold conditioning in a keg, softly singing to me in my sleep 'come on, just a little sneaky sip, I know you want to leave it for a year but c'mon.........'

 

[Nicko83]

Why the adjunct bias?. Plenty of experienced Brewers make very nice high alc beers by adding DME to them to boost gravity. In the case of DME, it's made from grain so it isn't just sugar.

I'm just wondering what sort of efficiency people are capable of getting out of their grains and mash tun. And also just interested to know how strong you can make a beer before you need to start adding extra. I'm not a mean person. I don't hate adjuncts.

 

[plateofboxes]

Just put an order in for two batches of grain - one all munich, and one red lagery thing. After reading this thread, I'm thinking about doing an iterative BIAB and using both grain bills in one.

 

[takai]

Out of curosity, what'd you mash at mate? That's awesome attenuation for a RIS, especially for one pack of us05! By the looks of it, I'm sure it smelt awesome while mashing and boiling, and even more once drinking :icon_drool2:

Schedule: 80m@67, 10m@78, 90min boil

It isn't a RIS though, more of a double imperial/West Coast IPA. 117IBU in there too.