Your Highest Original Gravity Brew?

[Kieren]

Hi All,

Just wondering what the highest starting gravity all malt beer people have brewed.

I am planning a larger system, increasing my mash tun size from 36L to accomadate more grains for double and triple batches and bigger beer. I love big beer and want to brew more. The biggest I have done so far is a weak 1.085.

I have done a few rough calculations. For triple batches (69L) I would need a 98L mash tun for an OG 1.100 or I could get 1.150 for a double batch from a mash tun the same size.

Is this big enough???

 

[Stuster]

I did a 1106 American Barleywine (although it did have about 7% sugar). Mostly with bigger beers, I do the big beer as the first runnings, and the second runnings becomes a smaller beer. Just ends up with less waste that way IMO. Your calcs look about right to me. Green bay rackers can I mash it calculator here may be helpful. You'd want something like 30kg of grain for that kind of quantity and gravity I think.

I guess the question is, do you want 69L of such a big beer!

 

[Fourstar]

I think its better to cut your losses with ahigh gravity beer, use a slightly higher grist weight and use just your 1st runnings and do a decent boil down. Say a 15l batch over a stanrd 20-23 L.

Then i'd do as stu said. Make a smaller beer and add some darker grains for an english mild or bitter of sorts if you want todo a second running. e.g. a partigyle.

When i eventually get around to collecting and cleaning a crapload of 330ml stubbies i might think about doing a US barleywine and age the ass out of it with a mild in the same batch just to validate that amount of grain use. Otherwise. its standard batch sizes for me. Im always scared of the final running having uber low extraction and full of tannins.

Oh my highest OG has been 1.065... dismal i know.

 

[RetsamHsam]

I have managed 1.114 out of a 55L esky that was with a 3.5 hour boil though.

Edit: ended up with about 27L

 

[brettprevans]

theres nbot going to be too many occations where your wanting a double or triple batch of huge beers like RIS, barleywine etc (I wouldnt think). thats a lot of high grav beer.

i would think that mostly your highest grav beer you'd do regularly is a belgian at 8-9% and thats only if you like belgians.

Most of my beers are around 6%. biggest Ive done is a RIS at 1100. single batch is still keeping me going after 2 years. but mainly thats also cause it takes at least 12 months to age minimum. Have you go enough bottles/kegs to age a triple batch of 1100 for more than a year?

 

[Px3t]

Wow Stuster, 1106, I have managed some 1075 beers with around 75IBU and I won't be in a hurry to make one again, too old for that caper!

 

[Kieren]

theres nbot going to be too many occations where your wanting a double or triple batch of huge beers like RIS, barleywine etc (I wouldnt think). thats a lot of high grav beer.

i would think that mostly your highest grav beer you'd do regularly is a belgian at 8-9% and thats only if you like belgians.

Most of my beers are around 6%. biggest Ive done is a RIS at 1100. single batch is still keeping me going after 2 years. but mainly thats also cause it takes at least 12 months to age minimum. Have you go enough bottles/kegs to age a triple batch of 1100 for more than a year?

The triple batches would be split between three or four people. It would take a long time indeed to get through 69L of an RIS or belgian triple or quadruple.

A couple of mates from work have just started brewing so we are forming a brew club with the aim of building an AG brew system.

Partigyle could be the way to go. Could get 46L first runnings @ 1.150. That should be big enough :icon_drunk:

 

[Effect]

Biggest I've done is a double batch of belgian golden strong ale. 1.080, but that was with sugar as well.

 

[Kieren]

Don't know if this would interest anybody.

I have created a spreadsheet showing possible batche sizes and gravities for different size mash tuns. I have had to make a few assumptions. 75% efficiency, 1 hour boil time. I have taken the suggestion of parti-gyle brews and also showed possible combinations using info from Tom Meier's site http://www.antiochsudsuckers.com/tom/parti-gyle.htm

I batch sparge so examples in the spreadsheet reflect this but it could be used for fly sparging.

All figures should be taken as approximate and used as a guide only.

I would be interested to see how this compares to users actual brew rigs and what they can achieve with the volume of their mash tun, particulary parti-gyle brews.

Any comments welcome.

View attachment mash_tuns.xls

 

[RetsamHsam]

Don't know if this would interest anybody.

I have created a spreadsheet showing possible batche sizes and gravities for different size mash tuns. I have had to make a few assumptions. 75% efficiency, 1 hour boil time. I have taken the suggestion of parti-gyle brews and also showed possible combinations using info from Tom Meier's site http://www.antiochsudsuckers.com/tom/parti-gyle.htm

I batch sparge so examples in the spreadsheet reflect this but it could be used for fly sparging.

All figures should be taken as approximate and used as a guide only.

I would be interested to see how this compares to users actual brew rigs and what they can achieve with the volume of their mash tun, particulary parti-gyle brews.

Any comments welcome.

I think most people find their efficiency drops by about 10 or more % with bigger beers.. This rings true for my system anyhow.

Though a partigyle mash might help bring the efficiency up, Stuster might be able to help out here, as I am yet to try this method.