Concentrated brewing

[lexuschris]

Hey all,

After hearing the stories about big breweries brewing concentrated worts, and then thinning them down with water prior to bottling, I wondered what it would take to get a 10-gal yield out of my 5-gal system?

Could I just brew a 1.100 brew, double the hops, and then cut it 50/50 with distilled water at kegging time and get two 5-gal batches of 1.050 beer?

Anyone have recommendations or experiences on this?
--LexusChris

[backyard brewer]

I'd try to ferment at your target gravity, after all it's a lot easier to get a 1.050 beer to attentuate than struggling with a 1.100 beer. I believe you'd have to increase the hops more than double as well as your utilization goes down as gravity goes up. Another challenge might be getting a good mix if you don't have a large enough vessel for the dilution although that shouldn't be a problem if you mix and ferment in a single larger fermenter.

It would be an interesting experiment.

[BrewMasterBrad]

I know it's not what you're after, but I got 20 gallons of Light American Lager out of my 10 gallon system. I just brewed a 1.064OG 20IBU lager and diluted it 50/50 with distilled water at kegging time. Came out great, but I don't know if I will do it again. Just wanted to see if it was possible.

[backyard brewer]

I know it's not what you're after, but I got 20 gallons of Light American Lager out of my 10 gallon system. I just brewed a 1.064OG 20IBU lager and diluted it 50/50 with distilled water at kegging time. Came out great, but I don't know if I will do it again. Just wanted to see if it was possible.

Brad did you notice the beer had a richer or maltier profile than it might have otherwise had? Might have been hard to detect in the style but I've read that's what Boston Beer Co does with their Sam Adam's Light to try to maintain the flavor, malt and perceived body profiles.

[BrewMasterBrad]

I know it's not what you're after, but I got 20 gallons of Light American Lager out of my 10 gallon system. I just brewed a 1.064OG 20IBU lager and diluted it 50/50 with distilled water at kegging time. Came out great, but I don't know if I will do it again. Just wanted to see if it was possible.

Brad did you notice the beer had a richer or maltier profile than it might have otherwise had? Might have been hard to detect in the style but I've read that's what Boston Beer Co does with their Sam Adam's Light to try to maintain the flavor, malt and perceived body profiles.

Could not really tell any increased maltiness due to the style. The grist was 20% rice too, so that didn't help. I am thinking I might try this method with a Mild and see how it turns out.

[bwarbiany]

I suppose the question also asks what limits the system to 5 gallons? Is it fermenter capacity? Boil capacity?

If it's just boil capacity, I'd boil the wort to 1.100, and then split between two fermenters (fill each one with 2.5gal water PRIOR to fill, and then you can be sure the contents of each are similar). As was pointed out, you'll need to account for lesser hop utilization in such a concentrated boil.

If the problem is fermenter capacity, it's a lot harder. Fermenting 1.100 wort is going to be a lot more difficult than fermenting 2x 1.050 wort. I'd go buy a bucket fermenter or extra carboy if that's the issue. Fermenters are cheap in comparison to boil kettle expansion, so don't let that be your limiting factor.

[tylking]

In High Gravity Brewing you should use deaerated water when you add it back to the final product, not to mention treating the water to match the same profile and pH... especially pH!

[lexuschris]

Thanks for the pointers & comments! A couple of different ways to skin this cat...

While planning for today's brewday, I penciled out a few of these ideas. Parti-gyle as well. What I ended up doing was scaling my mash recipe to 8 gallons, which is 9.7 gal in the boil kettle. However, after combining all the runnings, I split the batch 2/3 to 1/3.

Beer A, 2/3 of the wort, was a Northen English Brown Ale. Beer B, 1/3 of the wort, was an English Mild.

Beer A was 6.5 gal boil as-is. Although I did add 1# of DME at the end of the boil to bring my OG up a bit.

Beer B was combined 50/50 with water (i.e. 3.25gal wort + 3.25gal H20). I used different hops on this boil, and added 3# of DME to get my gravity where I wanted it.

Aside from my stuck mash issue, it did not add too much time to my brew day. Perhaps an extra hour or so. Now I have 2 five gallon fermenters bubbling away with 2 different beers from my system.

The prep was to create 3 recipes. One for the big mash that would be split (8 gal). Then the Beer A recipe with a single 'wort' add plus the hop schedule. Beer B likewise with different hop schedule, etc. I had to juggle my 5-gal HLT and 10-gal brew kettle to get liquids to fit for each stage, but it worked out just fine. No extra pots needed.

The DME was because I bought my grains for just the a single 5-gal batch, and had limited grains on-hand to scale up to 8-gal. Next time, I should be able to do it with the grains... however, I was pushing volume limits on my tun & kettles, so perhaps DME additions was a good way to go.

Again thanks for the tips & suggestions!
--LexusChris