How to Brew High-Alcohol Beer

Beer with a high alcohol content is also known as a high-gravity beer. Gravity refers mainly to the density of a beer in comparison to ordinary water. How the gravity affects the final alcohol content is simple: in a nutshell, the higher the gravity, the more alcohol can form.

Things You'll Need

• Beer kit
• Fermenting yeast
• Brewing equipment
• Filtered or distilled water

Instructions

1. Make your wort as you normally would, mixing the malt extract (or mash) in boiling water, as well as any hops with which you want to flavor your beer. Follow the recipe instructions carefully to ensure you're using the right quantities and proportions for your ingredients.

2. Set a few gallons of water aside for the fermentation process. You'll want to use filtered water to reduce the impurities in your beer, or you can use distilled water for truly clean water. It's very important, however, that this water not be boiled.

3. Pour your wort and the separate water into your fermentation bucket. Wort, as it has been boiling for a very long time, will have little oxygen in it. There will be oxygen in the standing water, which is important for the fermentation process (yeast can't metabolize the malt sugars without oxygen).

4. Add an air filtration system to the wort mixture for at least 20 to 30 minutes. You can do this using an air pump not unlike what you would use in a fish tank. This will re-oxygenate the wort to replenish what was lost during the long boil.

5. Ensure there is ample room in your fermenter for the expansion of the gases as the mixture ferments. One of the main by-products of high-alcohol beer is a tremendous amount of carbon dioxide. If you're not careful, then this can lead to a rupture of the fermenter. The fermenter won't explode, but if there isn't enough room for the expansion, then it can force hops and other solid particles into the airlock, which will prevent proper venting.

Tips & Warnings

• Resist the temptation to open a high-alcohol beer before it's had enough time to really mature. In some cases, this can mean leaving a beer untouched for up to a year, but the reward is well worth the wait.

• Some states will not allow you to brew high alcohol-content beer, so be sure you find out the legality of such brewing before you get started. You're unlikely to run into problems, as long as you brew high-alcohol beer for yourself, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

Resources

• Learn to brew high-alcohol beer at HowtoBrew.com