Beer Forum

I know that if you dissolve 1 pound of DME in one gallon of water, you should get a gravity of about 1.040. Here's what I want to know: If you add one pound of DME to one gallon of water, how much liquid with you have? A gallon and a quarter? A gallon and a half?

I'm doing a partial mash stout-like barley wine that calls for 10 lbs of DME. I know that with a 90 minute boil, I can start with 7.5 gallons and still leave me with 5.5 gallons to go into the fermenter. But how much liquid should I start with?

In case you are curious, I wound up with about 5 gallons of mash liquid and added the 10 pounds of DME. The volume got up to about 7 gallons. So one pound of DME will increase liquid volume about a quart.

wow that is quite a bit.

Surprised me too. I had another bucket of water ready, just in case. I didn't need it.

'Kay, here's my recipe:
Black Wine
Partial Mash

4# two row
2# Carafa Special
1# flaked oats
1# flaked barley
3/4# chocolate malt
1/4# flaked wheat
1/4# acid malt
1/2# turbinado sugar
1 1/2# corn sugar
10# light DME
1/4 oz Northern Brewer 5.4%/Full Wort
1 oz Chinook 13%/90
2 oz Northern Brewer 5.7%/90
3/4 oz Northern Brewer 5.7%/30
1/2 oz Mt. Hood 5.2%/30
1 oz Northern Brewer 5.7%/5
1.5 oz Mt. Hood 5.2%/0
WLP002 English Ale yeast in a 4L starter

My OG was 1.140 (60% efficiency--Yes, I suck (I said suck)). I brewed it on 12/7. Today I transferred to secondary. The gravity was 1.077. I was hoping for 1.030 or thereabouts. I plan on letting it stay in Secondary until May or June.

I expect it will dry out only slightly, say, down to 1.075. Any advice on getting the gravity lower? Should I pitch more yeast?

Thanks.

Yeah, I would mix up a 1L starter and pitch it at high kraussen. I had to do this with a barleywine also and it helped a lot. 1.077 is crazy high. You might even want to use a yeast like 001 instead of 002 to finish it up.

herbaljoe wrote:Yeah, I would mix up a 1L starter and pitch it at high kraussen. I had to do this with a barleywine also and it helped a lot. 1.077 is crazy high. You might even want to use a yeast like 001 instead of 002 to finish it up.

It is a bit high, but would be good on pancakes!

Thanks!

Dirk McLargeHuge wrote:

herbaljoe wrote:Yeah, I would mix up a 1L starter and pitch it at high kraussen. I had to do this with a barleywine also and it helped a lot. 1.077 is crazy high. You might even want to use a yeast like 001 instead of 002 to finish it up.

It is a bit high, but would be good on pancakes!

Thanks!

lol... nice idea! Now I'm going to have to try that someday...