High Gravity All Grain Brewing

[Barley Water]

There is a very interesting article in the current issue of BYO concerning what they call "iterative mashing" to make very high gravity worts from just grain. Basicly what they are doing is using the wort collected from the first mash to mash a second (or third) grist. Although according to the article, it takes awhile, I have spent that long doing a triple decoction so it doesn't really seem that bad to me. I have found that with my current set up, I really have trouble getting above about 1.070 O.G. without resorting to an abnormally long boil. For some reason, my mashing efficiency gets progressively worse the more grain I add to my mash tun (I have a converted picnic cooler set up). I don't often attempt to make beers this big but I could see trying to make a Wee Heavy or maybe a Barley Wine if I could get the O.G. somewhere around 1.100 or there abouts. Has anybody out there tried this or have any experience making some of these "monster" brews with just grain? Adding DME to an all grain wort strikes me as cheating, sort of like taking your cousin to the prom.

[steve_flack]

Adding DME to an all grain wort strikes me as cheating, sort of like taking your cousin to the prom.

Isn't that the done thing in parts of the US?

Anyway when I want a big beer I use DME or LME for the extra gravity - don't mind cheating.

[Dan]

when the wort becomes highly concentrated, sugars from the mash will not disolve into the liquid as easily so as you step up the malt bill the efficiency will fall. re mashing the same wort into new grain is an interesting idea but i can see that the above would still become a constraint.

have you tried just stopping the sparge short. or batch sparging and you could always try the age old partigyle approach

[Barley Water]

I haven't tried any of these methods, yet. The guy that wrote the article said it took some time for the sugar to go into solution which is why they said the second mash should go on for at least 90 minutes. The reason I am not too keen on just taking the first runnings is because it seems like such a waste. I am not set up to make more than one beer at a time so I would end up just chucking out grains which still had plenty of sugars left in them.

By the way Mr. Flack, you are correct, I have heard stores about what goes on in Arkansas but frankly have no first hand experience.

[Aleman]

The last Barley wine I made (~1.100) was mashed in my 25L mash Tun AND My Coolbox Tun, (With 12.8Kg Of Grain and 43L of water it was close to filling both) I lautered in my 60L MOAT (Mother Of All Tuns - TM) (Which wasn't finished at the time - I hadn't got the insulation on it). This was drained into the boiler ~ 24L of wort and boiled to just over 20L - Made a damn fine malty beer, If I make it again I'll certainly up the hops though.

Of course I also had the opportunity to remash the grain and got 30L of a 1.040 wort out of it, which was then boiled with a smaller hop charge, and that made a very nice table beer

So in reality if you want to make a big beer then you need a big tun and have to accept that you will either end up with an extended boil or by doing a no sparge beer you will either throw grain and extract away, or make a smaller beer from the second runnings - Watch those Tannins though, IIRC this was the only beer (The Small One) that has showed a high level of astringency that I have made, although that could be the Target Hops and SO4

[Aleman]

You could always just make less beer

I did only make 20L from almost 13Kg of grain , which these days makes ~80L of normal beer

[retourrbx]

In the partigyle approach, are the two end beers ever mixed to have not two but... three beers??

[SteveD]

In the partigyle approach, are the two end beers ever mixed to have not two but... three beers??

You can mix them in whatever ratio you want to get a range of strengths. Beers up to about OG 1080 can be made conventionally, with one mash, sparge and boil, up to about 5 gallons volume.

For very high gravity brewing ie over OG1080, and you either need big equipment or a different technique. You can either parti gyle it and use the strong wort for the high gravity beer, and the weaker for a second beer. For each wort, stop sparging when the gravity of the collected wort falls to about 15 points below your desired OG. The subsequent boil should then raise it to the desired gravity. The figure of 15 points should be fine tuned according to your boil times and evaporation rates. If you only want one strong beer what you can do after getting the first wort is sparge the second wort down to 50 points below desired OG, then boil it separately until the gravity rises to 15 points below, then add it to the first wort and boil the whole with the hops as usual.

Or...get a bigger mash tun and a big boiler, like my 100L steel one.

High gravity brewing can't be rushed at any stage of production. If you don't have the patience of Job then forget strong beers, because they won't come out particularly good if you try to hurry them along.