Serrano (Imperial) Strong Ale Help

[rodwha]

I really like the jalapeño blonde's spiciness. It's upfront without being overbearing enough that you couldn't/wouldn't want to drink several of them unless you just didn't tolerate spice.

I've thought about upping the heat to something more inline with how I like my fresh jalapeños, but that would keep most from wanting more than a sip (more for me, right?). And so I've been thinking of a very strong (12-20% ABV) beer to make scorching hot (the reason for the high gravity) using maybe serranos instead.

If I made it so strong that my typical US-05 couldn't handle it would I want to ferment it with US-05 for a week or so to achieve what it can and then follow it up with champagne yeast or some such?

Anyone make an overly strong ale or overly spicy beer, especially with serranos? I'm wanting it to be nearly as hot as biting into a raw pepper.

 

[HebridesRob]

I really like the jalapeño blonde's spiciness. It's upfront without being overbearing enough that you couldn't/wouldn't want to drink several of them unless you just didn't tolerate spice.

I've thought about upping the heat to something more inline with how I like my fresh jalapeños, but that would keep most from wanting more than a sip (more for me, right?). And so I've been thinking of a very strong (12-20% ABV) beer to make scorching hot (the reason for the high gravity) using maybe serranos instead.

If I made it so strong that my typical US-05 couldn't handle it would I want to ferment it with US-05 for a week or so to achieve what it can and then follow it up with champagne yeast or some such?

Anyone make an overly strong ale or overly spicy beer, especially with serranos? I'm wanting it to be nearly as hot as biting into a raw pepper.

Champagne yeast wouldn't go much past 11%. There aren't many wines over 12%. Almost none over 14%. Do you know of any yeasts that will go as strong as 20%? The only ones I know of are so-called turbo yeasts that are designed for sugar & water fermenting.

If you're wanting a beer at 20% alcohol you're probably going to have to add spirit to it to get it up there. Double pitching is the usual route to really strong beers, though. Using beer yeast alone would probably make your beer unpalatably sweet (not that you'd notice with all those Scovilles :electric: ).

 

[rodwha]

Turbo yeast... I think I've seen that somewhere.

I'm not sure if necessarily want to go as high as 20%, but I'm not sure more than a standard bottle of beer would be downed so I was thinking in terms of wine. There is some sort of beer that is that high though. I've not tried to eat more than one raw Serrano at a time. Not sure if two wouldn't burn me crispy!

I'm not sure what kind of characteristics a beer would have if using some other type of yeast. I know that I like the "clean" characteristics of US-05 and would prefer it.

 

[MyQul]

I've read of people brewing a batch of small low hoped beer so they rack that off the yeast cake and rack barley wine wort directly onto aforementioned yeast cake. Whether 20abv%would be too much for US-05 I don't know. It might just poison itself with alcohol and conk out before it gets anywhere near 20abv%

You also might want to look at something like this

http://www.whitelabs.com/yeast/wlp099-super-high-gravity-ale-yeast

 

[HebridesRob]

Turbo yeast... I think I've seen that somewhere.

I'm not sure if necessarily want to go as high as 20%, but I'm not sure more than a standard bottle of beer would be downed so I was thinking in terms of wine. There is some sort of beer that is that high though. I've not tried to eat more than one raw Serrano at a time. Not sure if two wouldn't burn me crispy!

I'm not sure what kind of characteristics a beer would have if using some other type of yeast. I know that I like the "clean" characteristics of US-05 and would prefer it.

Will this help a bit?
http://beersmith.com/blog/2010/05/09/how-to-brew-big-making-high-gravity-beers/
http://beerandwinejournal.com/big-wort-production/
If you want dry beer I wouldn't go higher than 10% abv.

 

[rodabod]

Have a look at the Safale and Wyeast websites for tolerance specs. My barley wine has already gone north of 10%, so I don't think it's too difficult to achieve. Toøl Goliat is 15% odd and uses conventional ale yeast (I forget which).

I've had beers with chilli before. Most were just spicy rather than capturing chilli flavour. There are so many different ways to get chilli flavour that I'd have think about it, eg. dry-roasting, pulping flesh, adding dry vs. raw, etc. I think you'd want lots of body to balance it out, which is possibly why cocoa is often used in combination. Dried coconut could be a consideration as well. Don't want to end up with a Thai curry, mind!