Large beer production with small fermenter?

[fakr]

I went on a Molson brewery tour with some guys from work a few weeks back and asked a bunch of innocent questions about their production techniques.  I saw how small their fermenters were in comparison to how much volume they produce.
The tour guide, who is also an employee, told me that their wort is very strong, and after fermentation is 9-10% ABV and they then cut the beer with water to produce the finished 4-5% beer.

This really got me thinking....a guy could make a great 10gal of 9-10% IPA, cut it with another 5-10gal of water, and have 15-20gal of pale ale.

I would really like to try this before the summer is done.  almost double the beer with the same fermenter in the same fermentation time.   Sounds like a great technique for light summer beers.

Thoughts?  Perhaps someone has already tried this?  I've added water to wort to make up the correct volume with great results, but never finished product.

[Roger]

That's a cool idea! Let us know how you make out with that experiment. More beer less work never a bad thing!

[fakr]

yeah, I will let you know for sure. 

I'm going to take a recipe I'm familiar with, like Joe's light summer ale, use the ingredients for 20 gallons, but only make and ferment 10 gallons....same hop schedule and all.

I'll assume it won't taste the same as making the 20 gallons of ale staight up, but if it's a light ale, it might not turn out that bad.

[Chris Craig]

I'm pretty sure Richard has tried this last year.  I'm not sure what the results were though.  I know there was an article floating around the web a few months ago about Budweiser doing this.  I think it's a fairly common practice.  It's possible that pH might be an issue, but I'm not sure where I'm getting that.  So many brewing-related articles in the past couple of years

[Kyle]

Back in the 5 gallon days, I did this quite a few times. The biggest concern is that highly hopped ales isomerise in a (sometimes) unpredictable and non-linear way when brewed using the concentrated method. Minimally hopped beers (brown ales work especially well) are fine to do, as well as pale ales that are dry-hopped. In any event, make sure that the water you add to the concentrated wort has either boiled or is not the chlorinated city water.

I also find that such beers taste "thin" so adding some carafoam, wheat, or other ingredients to offset this is a good plan.

[fakr]

Thanks Kyle, I knew someone here must have tried it.

[JohnQ]

It might be interesting to use the opportunity to experiment with some Hop Tea additions.

If one were to split off say 1/3 of the Flavour and Aroma Hops and use them when boiling the additional water following the same additions, say at 10 and flame out.  Whirlpool/Chill and add to the higher gravity beer.

I think I'd try it with a couple of litres before a whole batch.

JQ

[fakr]

Exactly Senior, try with a smaller amount to make sure a watered down version of the beer is actually good.

I had your PR in mind as well.  Make a high octane PR, and cut it down to a 5% and have almost double the volume.

Anyways, the brewery tour really got my wheels turning.