Giant-Beer Challenge.

One note I forgot, the jaggery/panela/gur sugar I used was bricks of soft, very molasses heavy sugar that if not stored properly would mold, so thats why I made sure to boil it before adding to the beer.

 

I have few concern with 30% ABV beer :

• How high content alcohol hold carbonation ?
• Too much alcohol can drown the body
• Who is gonna drink 30+% ABV beer ?

You can boost ABV in meany ways but it will come out

 

It's not a 30% beer, but at 25% and forced carbed (only way you'll get carbonation anyways), my stout holds a nice head and has a killer smooth, viscous mouth feel. I let it sit in secondary for 6 months to mellow out and its easily crushable, at least if you are used to drinking bigger brews. It drinks like a 12-15% brew, so the majority of those that taste it tell me. I love being able to take a 6 ounce pour of it at night and just mellow out with it. Point being, a big ass brew can be done, and it can be delicious. You obviously have to have a taste for them - they aren't for everyone. This was my 2nd go at a big brew (previous biggest brew was a 18% wheat wine), and I've been fortunate to have both turn out wonderful.

 

Just don't drink this stuff and drive/dive. Looks delicues

 

That is a beautiful damn beer, right there. Any insight on how you managed to get it up so high? Process, yeast strain, amount of grain, batch size, etc.?

I brewed a stout which started at 1.156 a couple months ago and finished at 1.060 (yeast crapped out...pitched and pitched again but figured it was done). It's a viscous beast but I think the effects of the barrel will thin the mouthfeel out a bit, although it's already pretty damn tasty with little alcohol presence. The majority of it went into a rye whiskey barrel where it will rest until I deem it ready - also throwing in a mixture of Mexican and Tahitian vanilla beans once the barrel character is there. It's the biggest beer I've done and I'm mighty proud of it, but I'd love to be able to hit 25%!!!

 

Thanks!

I brewed 5 gallons of 1.101 wort and pitched a 1.5 gallon starter of WLP007 and hit it with tons of oxygen and yeast nutrients. Started fermentation on the cool side to keep things from getting too crazy too fast. When that started slowing down I pitched a 1 gallon starter of WLP099. Starters both had pure o2 and yeast nutrients added. Once the wort was in the 1.03's I started adding 12oz of sugar every 12 hours. I would measure gravity every 12 hours to make sure the previous sugar addition fermented out and would add more sugar to get the gravity to back to where it was 12 hours earlier. To add the sugar I would pull out a quart of wort, whisk in the sugar aggressively, then pour the wort back in and stir up the wort with my mash paddle to keep yeast in suspension. It took about 2 weeks of adding sugar every 8-12 hours before the yeast started slowing down and I was happy with the ABV. As the yeast slowed I reduced the amount of sugar being added so I would not end up with too much residual sugar. I added yeast nutrients a few times along the way as well.

The whole trick is to just keep those yeast healthy, happy, and hungry. Just brewing a huge kettle of wort and hoping to ferment it out in one go is going to be very difficult, so you want to start with a smaller big beer and beef it up. Don't feed the yeast too much at once, and don't make them wait too long between feedings either.

 

Interesting topic, lot´s of good info, just writing to get alerts of this. Cheers!