homebrewandbeer.com

Just wondering if anyone has a recipe for a good 8-10% alcohol beer. How much sugar should you use so that it doesnt kill the yeast

There is the Imperial Stout Oliver and Geoff have made, we too had a go at this one (we called it Big Black Bertha), and it came out around 10.5%. Pretty involved to make though (a whole day of beery activity).

Some people put wine/champagne yeast into higher alcohol beers (as fermentation gets stuck at higher alcohol levels), but we had no trouble using standard ale yeast with ours, we just made a yeast starter first to get it off to a good start.

Cheers,
RLu.

White Labs has a yeast that will go 25 percent reportedly

DOgger

I think most of your "standard yeast can handle these alcohol levels with few problems. THe rule for big beers is to pitch big. Probably make a big starter or else pitch double the amount of dry yeast you usually use.

Anyways,
I made up a fairly large IPA over the weekend. it's a recipe of my own design, but if you want to try it or tweak it, by all means go ahead.

Brewer: R Dombrowski Email: -
Beer: Extract IPA Style: India Pale Ale
Type: Extract w/grain Size: 21 liters
Color: 23 HCU (~13 SRM)
Bitterness: 72 IBU
OG: 1.075 FG: 1.014
Alcohol: 7.9% v/v (6.2% w/w)
Grain: .5kg British crystal 50-60L
Boil: minutes SG 1.065 22 liters
3kg Light malt extract
1.5kg Amber malt extract
500g dextrose
Hops: 50g Target (10% AA, 60 min.)
25g UK Progress (5% AA, 45 min.)
10g Kent Goldings (5% AA, 30 min.)
10g Kent Goldings (5% AA, 15 min.)
10g Kent Goldings (aroma)

White Labs London Ale Yeast - 1L Starter


The goldings additions are pretty much a constant addition from the 30 min point to flameout, that is, roughly 1g a minute, rather than the larger additions at specific times. Either way should work. This beer comes out a deep reddish color. You will need to either do a full volume boil or recalculate the hop additions to reach the target bitterness given the lower efficiency in a smaller boil. THe priming sugar added at bottling should push this one up to just a bit over 8% when all is said and done.

This beer, as well as all high alcohol/bitter beers needs a good long aging period.

If you don't want to do a beer this complex, 2 kits of coles brand lager plus a KG of dextrose gives you a big beer that doesnt taste too bad.


dogger,

yes, there is a Platinum series yeast that can handle ~25%, but being a platinum series, it's only available for about a month a year, it's hard to find and even harder to find in Australia.

go here:
http://www.esbeer.com.au/category8_1.htm
-wombat

yeah, I was thinking of something I could make with that yeast, didn't really come up with anything. I was thinking something like a BIG imperial stout, apparently dogfish head brewery in the US makes an 18% stout.

or else I could try to come up with my own poison...
...But it'd have to follow the rule of 1 IBU per gravity point

I was also a little afraid of getting it shipped, in the heat in the post office in brisbane it wont last too long.

Not offering a recipe, but my last (and, indeed, first ever) brew was about 9%, if I recall the OG was 1070 and the final 1006 or something like that. I just used Safale yeast and it was fine, though it did take about 3 weeks (after being brewed at a constant 10*c).

It turned out alright, but it just tasted a bit too strong for a lager. I think I'll make my next one a bit lighter and try and get a nicer flavour.