Yeast Question/Accidental Strong Beer

[The Hansa]

alright... I was trying to make a German brown ale but now it looks like I’ve brewed a barley wine/Strong Belgian beer haha

Due to a mistake in brewing my last beer (using too much lme), I shot over the predicted 8% ABV and landed 1.120 og which has a potential of being 14% if it attenuates 75-80%...I used 1 and a half packets of White labs German kölsch yeast and a little bit of (frozen) lutra kveik and a decent amount of nutrient... I am worried that the Yeasts are going to stress out because their alcohol tolerance is at its highest 10/11%... Should I add more yeast or am I fine? If I should use more yeast what should I use?

grain bill
5 lb Vienna (step mash)
5 lb Munich lme
7 lb Bavarian wheat lme
0.19 oz molasses

 

[dmtaylor]

You can add some other yeast... but you might want to consider diluting down with distilled water to achieve your goal instead, to end up with about 1.5 times as much 8% ABV beer, which the existing yeast should have no trouble fermenting.

 

[rburrelli]

Not sure how you reached that OG with that grain bill. Did you boil long? In a normal situation that would be about a 10% beer.
Your molasses quantity seems real low. .19 ounce?

 

[The Hansa]

Not sure how you reached that OG with that grain bill. Did you boil long? In a normal situation that would be about a 10% beer.
Your molasses quantity seems real low. .19 ounce?

Me and my friend step mashed the Vienna for 3 and a half hours, which could easily be the culprit. I was confused about the molasses too... we were going off of a old German recipe and I think the molasses addition was lost in translation... The other part is that we should have used less lme and punched the numbers before hand... The recipe was intended for all grain and mistook lme sugar yields to be the same as grain

 

[GoodTruble]

Does diluting down with RO after fermentation actually work very well? I have a brown ale in the fermenter that is darker and stronger than I intended (tastes more like a strong Scottish ale or wee heavy). I'd be all for turning those 5 gallons into a lighter 5.5 gallons if simple dilution actually works well.

 

[DuncB]

@GoodTruble I'd just pour some of the beer and then try adding some filtered water to it and see how you like the taste. That way you can play around with dilutions. I'd only add boiled water to a keg or fermenter if the beer is finished ( once I'd decided if it worked for me).

 

[GoodTruble]

@GoodTruble I'd just pour some of the beer and then try adding some filtered water to it and see how you like the taste. That way you can play around with dilutions. I'd only add boiled water to a keg or fermenter if the beer is finished ( once I'd decided if it worked for me).

Thanks! I'm taking a sample tonight anyway, and I'll try diluting that with a bit of water so see how it goes.

I was also just checking some other threads on dilution, and one suggestion was to just add a little more water to your priming solution.

 

[DuncB]

@GoodTruble Yes i think i read that in one of the threads. Good idea to know where you start from though rather than taking a guess. It won't be a lot per bottle I wouldn't think.

 

[IslandLizard]

Me and my friend step mashed the Vienna for 3 and a half hours, which could easily be the culprit. I was confused about the molasses too... we were going off of a old German recipe and I think the molasses addition was lost in translation... The other part is that we should have used less lme and punched the numbers before hand... The recipe was intended for all grain and mistook lme sugar yields to be the same as grain

What's your total volume in the fermenter?
How much wort was left behind in the kettle or lost during transfer?
That could shine some light on the gravity.

3.5 hours of mashing will not increase your gravity much beyond an hour mashing. Most starch (from the grain) will have been converted within 30 minutes, provided it was mashed thin enough, mixed well, and kept at reasonable mash temps (145-158F).
How much volume and gravity did you get out of that mash?

 

[The Hansa]

How much volume and gravity did you get out of that mash?

3 and 1/2 gallons I believe... The OG at first was 1.110 when it was hotter but the next day it jumped to 1.118/ 1.120

I know that just because the reading came out soo high doesn’t mean that it will be the Abv of 13 or soo percent as I am predicting

 

[GoodTruble]

@DuncB - I'll stop hijacking this thread, but I added water incrementally to my sample and the brown ale definitely was a bit better with a bit more water (though not much). So I'm going to just increase the amount of water in the priming solution when I bottle. (I add priming solution to each bottle to get even distribution).

 

[The Hansa]

@DuncB - I'll stop hijacking this thread, but I added water incrementally to my samlle and the brown ale definitely was a bit better with a bit more water (though not much). So I'm going to just increase the amount of water in the priming solution when I bottle. (I add priming solution to each bottle to get even distribution).

Doesn’t matter to me haha... I’ve been thinking about doing a water down as well

 

[DuncB]

@GoodTruble When I prime I like to squirt the sugar in liquid form in anyway, some I think use sugar crystals / powder and a funnel but I never found it that consistent. I suppose the other option would be a beer blend using some really weak stuff, but I've never tried that.
However if you'd done a parti gyle and had made a weak beer from the runnings I suppose you'd be sitting pretty now.
They always used to say that courage best was watered down Directors and I believe that Fullers used or maybe still do this with some of their beers.

 

[IslandLizard]

3 and 1/2 gallons I believe... The OG at first was 1.110 when it was hotter but the next day it jumped to 1.118/ 1.120

Do you mean the total volume in the fermenter is 3.5 gallons?
Did you add any water to it at that point?
It may not have been mixed all the way, hence the lower OG reading the day before. Or it evaporated some some more while chilling.

I know that just because the reading came out soo high doesn’t mean that it will be the Abv of 13 or soo percent as I am predicting

Yeah, the yeast may call it quits due to alcohol poisoning before fermenting everything.

Also, high gravity boils tend to caramelize the various sugars much more. Those caramels aren't fermentable, keep final gravity higher, yielding sweeter beer.

Extracts really don't need to be boiled. Dissolved, yes, at the end of the boil, kept (at least) at 170F for a few minutes to pasteurize, and ready to chill.

 

[The Hansa]

3.5 in the pot, I diluted with a gallon of water to fill up my corny keg... I also took a quarter gallon of wort and put that in a separate fermenter so I could take readings from the smaller batch and not the keg.

I was concerned about remaining sugar since I am a beginner, but to know that some sugars have become unfermentable makes sense and is reassuring