High ABV

I have a couple dozen successful brews under my belt now. But I would like to step out of my comfort zone and brew a 3 gallon batch of imperial breakfast stout. I would like my abv to be 12-12.5%. My question is do I use 2 viles with a 1000 MIL starter? I was told to use a vile with a big starter and a pack of blue saf, but i've also been told not to mix strands of yeast. So whats the right thing to do?

thanks gentlemen.

Just brewed a 13% Stout...5.5 gallon batch and pitched 2000ml Wyeast 1098. Fermentation took off almost instantly.

BeerSmith told me I needed twice as much starter than I did though so I should have pitched more.

you only used one vile?

how about wlp099?

um....hello?

you won't need 099 with that size. i'd just use 2 packs of something like S-05, otherwise follow mr malty for pitch size: http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

dunno why someone told you not to mix strains, there's no harm in it.

One vile is good if you are doing a starter. If you don't want to do a starter then pitch multiple viles. I'd suggest using a blow off tube as well. Big beers pitched with a healthy amount of yeast tend to blow off.

S-05 can't handle that high an ABV can it? I would think you would want to use a big starter of your flavor yeast and at 3/4 done or so, add some yeast energizer and nutrient plus a starter of something like Danstatrs Cask conditioning yeast or a champagne yeast to finish it off.

Actually I'm reading that S-05 can possibly go up to 11%. But I would think a bit of energizer and nutrient would help. I'd still want to come in with something to finish it off, possibly in the bottle (corked and wired) with a potent fishing yeast like the Danstar Cask Conditioning yeast from an active starter.

DrVertebrae said:

S-05 can't handle that high an ABV can it? I would think you would want to use a big starter of your flavor yeast and at 3/4 done or so, add some yeast energizer and nutrient plus a starter of something like Danstatrs Cask conditioning yeast or a champagne yeast to finish it off.

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S-05 can get up to 15%. also, champagne doesn't work to finish off beers, its only useful for simple sugars which there won't be any left at that point.

dcp27 is probably pretty close on the alcohol tolerance but I think you'd better make sure you have optimal conditions such as very good aeration prior to the pitch and good yeast starter. There are issues with some off flavors related to overpitching so you might want to read up a bit on optimal pitch as well. One thing also to be carefull with is your measurment of OG. With this much stuff, it is very difficult to get a really good mix so there is a high probability of error in the measurement. Very, very aggressive shaking and mixing prior to taking the measurement will be needed for both a good measure of OG and aeeration.

shlitzcan said:

I have a couple dozen successful brews under my belt now. But I would like to step out of my comfort zone and brew a 3 gallon batch of imperial breakfast stout. I would like my abv to be 12-12.5%. My question is do I use 2 viles with a 1000 MIL starter? I was told to use a vile with a big starter and a pack of blue saf, but i've also been told not to mix strands of yeast. So whats the right thing to do?

thanks gentlemen.

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If you want to do it by the best available information (afaik), go to www.yeastcalc.com and use their calculator! (MrMalty also has one)

For a 12.5% ABV, you're looking at a starting gravity of around 1.11. For 3 gal with ale yeast, yeastcalc says you need 441 billion cells. Assuming you have a liquid strain you want to use, here's what it looks like:

For a single vial with 75% viability (so about a month after packaging, or 3 months before the expiration date if it's a White Labs vial--not sure about others), you'd need a 6 quart starter with a stir plate. With two vials, you would need a 3 quart starter. So even if you pitch two vials, 1L is not going to be nearly big enough.

If you're limited to 1L starters, you're going to have a challenge---I'm not sure it'll be practical to hit that kind of yeast count with starters that small, you'll need quite a few vials and at that point, 1L stops being enough to increase the cell count significantly. Plus, beyond about 3 vials, it starts being cheaper to invest the money in larger flasks rather than vials of yeast!

What I'd probably do is a two-step starter in a 1 gallon cider jug I use in place of a flask (< $10 full of cider). Using intermittent shaking, a 2qt step followed by a 3qt step hits the numbers. I'd probably do two 3qt steps as insurance.

If you're willing to use dry yeast, everything will be easier. Just use 3 5-gram packs or 1 11.5-gram pack and you should be ok, per MrMalty.

Good info zeg. I was just looking at MrMalty.