adding whiskey to a Christmas Ale.

[jayjt29]

Anyone know how much 40% Whiskey to add to a 6.1% brew to add a hint of flavour and bump the abv to 7%? if my final brew length is 20 litres?

Ive read mixed reports on when to add it aswell, some say after fermentation some say at the start and some say in the middle!! If anyones interested my planned brew is here;

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=61422

The only tweek im making is not soaking the raisins in the whiskey as im just going to add the whiskey straight and the raisins at the start of the ferment.

a final thought i dont want an over powering whiskey flavour just a hint.
Im planning on brewing this in the morning

Cheers
Jay

[126mark]

By my reckoning, if you had 100% alcohol and wanted to dilute it to 0.9% (the additional alcohol you want), you would need to add 180 mL in 20 litres. As you are working with a 40% alcohol solution, you would need to add 450 mL (ignoring the increase in volume from 20 L to 20.45L).

Seems like quite a lot to me, although I've never tried fortifying a beer in this way. Personally, I would add it after fermentation. You don't want to give the yeast a shock by adding it too early before it's got going, plus if you add it straight away, Sod's Law will dictate that this will be the one brew where you get an infection and would have lost a bottle of scotch. Good luck with it. I'd be interested to hear how it turns out.

[jayjt29]

Cheers Mark, 450ml does seem alot there is a math called Pearsons Square http://www.fermentarium.com/homebrewing ... ons-square, but i cant work it out at the minute (had a few this afternoon)

Do you think 450ml will over power the beer? maybe i dont want to bump the volume up and just add the whiskey for abit of flavour, just when i thought id got it all planned!

Think ill do as you suggest and add it after fermentaion. Ill keep you updated, might record a brewday to log it all.

Jay

[Matt12398]

In a 20 litre batch you're looking at just over 10 mL per bottle. You could try taking a commercial beer or another you've brewed yourself in a similar style and add 10 mL of whisky. See what it tastes like. If its too much do a put a bit less in.

[jayjt29]

Cheers, brewed today and cubed tonight will add yeast in the morning. Im going to add 10ml of whiskey in a beer tonight to see what its like, im thinking ill be adding less as i dont want it over powering.
Cheers
Jay