some advice, please

[reisjdmd]

i've been using the mr brew barrel for years with excellent results. however, i alwaysuse the malt extract sold by my local supply house. the cans are large, about twice the size of the mr brew cans; i don't recall the size as i sit in the office, but around 3 pounds seems about right. i always used the whole can to make the wort and then threw in some hops and got a very nice product. OG about 1.042; FG about 1.020.
for this last batch, i did the same thing, but for the heck of it ialso threw in about one pound of light malt powder. the OG was 1.070. after 4 days of good cooking, the SG dropped to 1.022 and will probably bottom out about 1.020.
this morning i tasted the ferment and it was still a little sweet and had a good raw hoppy taste. however, i also noticed the strong alcohol taste that i notice when i try the cheap high alcohol beers from the local mini mart. not all that pleasant.
now, by my calculation, the final alcohol percent ought tobe about 6.6%, which is high.
the question: is it possible to make a light colored beer that is this high in alcohol without getting that sharp alcohol taste?? in other words, when a strong stout porter is made with high alcohol, does the tons of roastedbrown malt used cover up the strong alcohol flavor, or am i haveing a yeast problem or other??? any suggestions appreciated. i want a light colored beer without the heavy brown suger flavor [and gas problems] and still get high alcohol without the sharp taste. am i dreaming??

 

[smurfe]

With a FG of 1.020 you are going to have a lot of residual sugar. Not muchof anything is going to cover the sweet taste other than more bittering hops.Your yeast has a certain attenuation level and although you think you had a problem with the yeast, it looks like it fermented pretty good to me if you got that OG of 1.070 down to 1.020. Most beers have an OG of around 1.050 and FG or 1.010 or so with complete attenuation of the yeast. Most brewers that brew high alcohol beers make massive yeast starters like a gallon or larger to obtain massive yeast counts that can attack that high of a OG and ferment down to 1.008-1.010 FG.

 

[uavwmn]

smurfe,how do I calculate the abv of my beer?

 

[smurfe]

smurfe,how do I calculate the abv of my beer?

Subtract the Finished Gravity from the Original gravity and multiply by 131. For example, if your stating gravity is (OG)1.050 and you ferment down to 1.010 (FG)you take 1.050 - 1.010 = 0.04 x 131 = 5.24% ABV

 

[smurfe]

ps. You can also take the easy way out like I do and just plug the numbers into my Beersmith program and it will figure all that stuff for me.