Anybody out there have any first hand experience diluting homebrew with water to lower gravity? I know I've heard tasty say that he'll add water to a keg of his IPA to bring the ABV down in the low 4's to make it more sessionable for golf outings. A brewing buddy of mine overshot the OG on a recent Saison and was thinking about adding a portion to a small two gallon keg, topping up with de oxygenated water, aiming for a 3%abv Saison rather than the original 8.6%. The beers numbers are OG 1.075 FG. 1.008
I think the amount of water that you will have to add to get to 3% will kill your flavors and be too watery. To make a tasty 3% beer you need to start with a plan which usualy begins with mashing at a higher temp. Good luck
Ive never done this per se, but the hop bitterness would be diluted also. Something excessively hopped like an IPA can stand the decrease without being to noticeable. What I have done with an overly boozy saison not too long ago was add...wait for it...stay calm...Blue Moon. I'd pour a bottle of blue moon into my half liter glass then top off with my saison. It saved the keg and made for a really good glass of beer.
Mix it with plain soda water in the glass in the proportions you're considering and see if it works for you. Adjust, as necessary. I suspect 8.6% to 3% will likely kill a lot more than the buzz.
Yea I think 3% is gonna be too low also. I may convince him to try diluting to 5% first to see how it tastes. Found this article that at least gave us a formula to go with. http://www.byo.com/stories/item/237-blending-for-volume-techniques
You might contact Tasty McDole via the Brewing Network forum to get some tips. I also think McDole's technique or something like it may have been described as part of article that Drewbage wrote for Zymurgy, so you could contact Drew here in this forum or dig through some of the Zymurgy back issues in the AHA archives. It might work for the right beer, but I think it would hurt a saison. Unless at 8%, the yeast character is overwhelming, you coould end up diluting it to a point where it may not be recognizable as saison. If it were an IPA and I was diluting to a sessionable pale ale, I might worry about dilute hop character, but too a degree, this could be compensated with dry hopping in the keg. I wonder if McDole does that...
On a related matter, has anybody ever done high gravity brewing? You make a batch of higher gravity wort and then dilute to achieve a desired lower gravity (and lower IBUs). Are there formulas available to aid in this brewing practice (to achieve the desired lower gravity and lower IBUs)? Cheers!
http://byo.com/component/k2/item/16...e-do-you-just-double-all-the-ingredients-also I found this article earlier when searching the inter webs.
Jack the previous link I posted has a formula that I think will work also. Say you have 5 gallons of 1.090 beer and want 10 gallons of beer. 90(5)=x(10) 450/10=45 X=45 You get 10 gallons of 1.045 wort. Now I have no idea how to back track that to hit a specific gravity. Edit. I don't think that article touches on ibu loss
Thanks for that link. Unfortunately Mr. Wizard (Ashton Lewis) states: “High gravity brewing, as you propose, certainly has its merits but, like many things in brewing, has no exact formulas.” I was really hoping to find a formula. Like for example: if you wanted to boil a batch that results in a 5 gallons of concentrated wort but then add water so that you can ferment an 8 gallon batch of 1.045 wort that the formula would provide what OG the 5 gallon concentrated wort need to be; maybe the concentrated wort needs to 1.072 for example? Cheers!
Sweet! The Chris Colby article provides the answer I was looking for wrt gravity calculations! I am not too concerned about the IBU aspect as there have been studies/experiments which indicated that wort gravity does not impact hop utilization (findings which contradict conventional wisdom and therefore are highly controversial to BA homebrewers). Thanks!
He's now working on this blog, with others: http://beerandwinejournal.com/ But this doesn't explain his departure from BYO -- just one thing he is doing now that he left.
