Whats The Best Way To Raise Alc/cont In Brew?

[beerlover101]

hey guys i was just wondering about raising the alc in a brew :icon_drunk: . i've heard doubling fermentables,less water,more priming sugar(quite stupid), and different yeasts(not to sure if it would change alc). i was hoping that some one out in the aussie home brewer world with expeirence in this and could shed some light on the matter.

 

[manticle]

Hey mate,

There was a thread on high alcohol beer recently to which I replied. My answer to you would be similar.

It can be found here: http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//ind...c=36984&hl=

Basically you need more fermentables but you need to treat it right and balance your ingredients if you want it to taste any good.

 

[svyturys]

Hi aussiecraftbeerlover,

The alcohol in beer is in proportion to the amount of malt/sugars that you put in. Then it's a matter of balancing the flavour, usually by adding hops as extra malt would make your higher alcohol beer sweeter.

I would suggest that you have a look at a couple of K&K recipes that involve using 1.5 Kg of malt and follow the hopping procedures there.

An alternative would be to do a Toucan. There is a thread here called the "battle of the toucans".
Check that one out as well.

Cheers

 

[Nick JD]

The way I see it, raising alcohol levels purely for the sake of raising alcohol levels only results in crap tasting beer (as opposed to brewing to a high alc style recipes formulated to handle the alc).

Water is the only free beer ingredient. It's a very important ingredient in making beer taste nice. So why not add more of it rather than less of it - and drink more beer - tasty beer, rather than beer that tastes like liquid farts?

It's much easier to get :icon_drunk: quick when the beer tastes nice .

If you want a kit to have high alc, I'd suggest to add equal parts of dextrose and LDME till your heart's (liver's) content. I strongly suggest not going north of 7% though with kit beers. I've been there, it ain't pretty.

 

[tdh]

To keep the recipes proportions intact just lower your fill level.

If you think in ratios then your gravity increase is easy

e.g. 23 litres and OG = 1.042

17 litres and new OG = 1.056 (roughly)

3/4 fill level = 4/3 x OG

tdh

 

[Fourstar]

To keep the recipes proportions intact just lower your fill level.
If you think in ratios then your gravity increase is easy

Dont forget IBU needs to be proportional as well.

 

[brando]

If you want really high octane stuff you might want to do a search on ice beer. Kinda like straining the liquid out of a Slush Puppie approach.

Most high alcohol beer I've tried tasted like horse urine (with a few exceptions). High alcohol is best suited to wine and spirits IMO.

 

[Fourstar]

If you want really high octane stuff you might want to do a search on ice beer. Kinda like straining the liquid out of a Slush Puppie approach.

Do it well, do it right is the best approach. I'd say you can do a high alc beer out of kits but it would have to be a barley wine style beer. 2 tins of goo, 1 kg of DME, some (a $hitload) of aroma hops and a long cold slow ferment. aged well... purrfect.

 

[WillM]

Here's a Belgian golden ale I did recently

1 X 1.7kg Can of good brew shop Pilsener
1 X 1kg can of liquid wheat malt extract
400g Honey
1kg sugar, made into Belgian candy sugar (or toffee)

15g Coriander seed
Zest (orange peel -not the white) from one orange
15g Saaz hops (4%)
A good yeast - I used whitelabs WLP570 Belgian Golden Ale Yeast

Boil the candy sugar, honey, zest, coriander and hops in a saucepan for 15 mins then proceed as normal for a can brew

Let it age about twice as long as normal and enjoy

 

[manticle]

If you want really high octane stuff you might want to do a search on ice beer. Kinda like straining the liquid out of a Slush Puppie approach.

Most high alcohol beer I've tried tasted like horse urine (with a few exceptions). High alcohol is best suited to wine and spirits IMO.

You mean homebrewed or commercial?

I guess it depends what you mean by high but Schneider's aventinus weizen eisbock, westmalle trippel and rochefort 10 are all lovely, lovely beers. There are many others that sit between 6 and 10% that are delicious.

 

[avaneyk]

You mean homebrewed or commercial?

I guess it depends what you mean by high but Schneider's aventinus weizen eisbock, westmalle trippel and rochefort 10 are all lovely, lovely beers. There are many others that sit between 6 and 10% that are delicious.

I tried Duvel a couple of weeks ago - around 9% and very drinkable :icon_drool2: . Also, a few 80/- Scotish ales I've had have been very nice on a cold night - they're about 8% IIRC...