This week I check out the brewing of very excessive gravity beers to incorporate kinds like Barley Wines and excessive Imperial Stouts. These beers require considerably particular dealing with as it may be laborious to realize the very excessive beginning gravity and fermentation, and as well as they typically require intensive growing old.
Very Excessive Gravity Beers
I’ve beforehand lined excessive gravity brewing in each articles and podcasts. A number of notable ones embody my articles Find out how to Brew Massive, Excessive Gravity Brewing with BeerSmith and my interview with Michael Tonsmeire on very excessive gravity barrel aged stouts. These lined most of the fundamental methods for brewing larger gravity beers, which is usually thought of beers which can be 1.080 beginning gravity and up.
Immediately I’m going to enter what I would name excessive excessive gravity beer brewing, which begins at 1.100 and sometimes can go a lot larger. This primarily encompasses two kinds: Barley Wine and Imperial Stouts, although a couple of different kinds fall into this vary like Eisbock or Sahti.
The flavour problem all excessive excessive gravity beers face is sustaining some stability within the beer. Because of the excessive beginning gravities, these beers often even have a excessive ending gravity. This implies they are going to have a whole lot of malty sweetness that must be offset by one thing else. Within the case of Eisbock and Imperial Stout we’re counting on tannins from the darkish malts, generally mixed with tannins from wooden growing old to offset the sweetness. For the Finnish Sahti fashion, rye and juniper together with a robust banana-clove taste gives stability. English Barleywine is the odd man out because it embraces a wealthy malty end and compliments it with a beneficiant dose of caramel malts.
Brewing Very Excessive Gravity Beers
After we focus on very excessive gravity beers the primary problem is how you can obtain the acute beginning gravity. With some excessive imperial barrel aged stouts beginning within the 1.160 OG vary, you’ll be able to’t use a standard mash on these beers. There may be merely not sufficient house in a normal mash tun and even when there was you’d get such poor mash effectivity (as a result of low complete water/grain ratio) that it might be hopeless.
So we’re left with a couple of choices to realize excessive beer gravities:
- An Extraordinarily Lengthy Boil – Many industrial brewers use two or extra separate mashes at merely “excessive” gravities after which boil them down over a protracted time frame, typically 24 hours or extra to realize their excessive goal gravity. Typically the second mash is completed whereas the primary one is boiling, with the overall wort boiled down even additional.
- Malt Extract or Sugar Additions – Each industrial and residential brewers can brew a reasonably excessive gravity wort after which instantly add malt extract or numerous sugars to spice up the unique gravity larger earlier than boiling and fermenting. That is in all probability the simplest method for a house brewer to realize very excessive gravities.
- The Eisbock Technique – Eisbock is made not from an especially excessive beginning gravity however truly by freezing the completed beer and eradicating the ice that varieties, leaving the next alcohol beer behind. Water freezes at 32 F (0 C) whereas alcohol has a freezing level of -173 F (-114 C) so chilling separates the 2. The method, referred to as “freeze distillation”, is against the law commercially within the US with no distillers license, and a few care should be taken as you’re additionally concentrating fusel alcohols like methanol which might be poisonous at excessive focus.
General the malt extract/sugar methodology might be the simplest for a house brewer. Merely begin with as a lot grain as you’ll be able to slot in your mash tun after which add both malt extract (liquid or dry) or sugars as wanted to realize your ending gravity. Bear in mind that sugars ferment at the next charge, so chances are you’ll get extra attenuation throughout fermentation and a decrease ending gravity if you happen to use sugar.
Subsequent week in Half 2 I’ll have a look at a few of the fermentation concerns that come into play with very excessive gravity beers. Particularly, it is advisable to guarantee beginning atmosphere and good yeast well being or you’ll find yourself with a caught fermentation and really excessive closing gravity leaving a beer that’s sickly candy.
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