Knocking down the ABV

Something I tried today. My barrel aged saison was giving me problems. First of all it had a bit of astringency. Wasn’t overwhelming and disipated a bit when the beer was airated in the glass. Secondly it was to strong for my liking. Almost 8%. I like to have one or two but this beer put me on the coach. I’ll have a higher ABV beer in the colder month s in a small glass but this time of year I’m thirsty though. I made it strong because it was going to be aged in the barrel. Anyway what I did was I had a gallon of it that I had put into a 1 gallon jug with some cranberry juice and some dregs trying to sour it. It never got sour maybe to much alcohol. So I racked the one gallon cranberry saison into a keg along with a gallon of water, then I purged the keg and pushed over 3 gallons of the saison into it. I figured that it knocked it down to about 6.5%. I also read that the fruit would help with the astringency. Tastes pretty good. I have a barley wine and an imperial Porter that are way to strong for me and I plan on using them for blending also. Probably make some low ABV Porter for that. Anyone do this or have any suggestions or insight?

Spiked seltzer :grinning:

Not at all @uncdeo. It’s still full bodied. I used a good amount of flaked wheat in the recipe. It’s basically my standard saison recipe with extra grain to make it stronger. I figured it is no different than the water grain ratio I would normally use. Correct me if I’m wrong.

I was about to write “you are right”, but then realized the question might be a bit more complicated.

Some of the big breweries use a technique of fermenting a stronger “concentrated” beer which is then diluted to proper strength for packaging. The stated rational is that it has more body when done that way than if it was fermented with all the water present. Not sure if that is real or marketing mumbo jumbo to justify an economic advantage: make more beer per batch than your tank can hold.

I’ve tried the technique, and I can’t say if the body really does come out better like that, but it certainly doesn’t hurt anything. Provided you deoxiginate the water before mixing it in. But that is easy, just boil it and let it cool before using it.

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But add water will dilute the taste as well i do think i could be wrong

Well yes it could in a weaker beer. But in this beer it knocked down the tannin taste and the alcohol taste so all and all it seems to have worked. It’s much more drinkable now. I’ll see how it holds up

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You know this turned into a very refreshing beer. It has a little lemony flavor to it. I tried to enhance that by rubbing some lemon peel on the rim. I liked it. I’m thinking open the keg and " dry hopped " some lemon zest.

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Of course I could just juice the rim when serving and call it a day

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Next batch… just guzzle this one… :sunglasses: Sneezles61