Trying to brew a super high gravity beer with white labs yeast...

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kingbb69

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I tried to create a 20% ABV beer using the white labs yeast, and it stalled around 12%... We pitched the yeast after using our regular yeast to get it to 12% and followed the directions on aeration and addition of yeast enzyme. The yeast failed to activate and the beer is still at 12% after 6 weeks sitting in the fermenter. I was wondering if anyone has ever tried to do something crazy like this, and trying to see if I did something wrong, or if it is possible that the yeast was bad... The beer tastes extremely sweet, and I think it needs something else, or I am just way off base here... Any help is much appriciated.

Thanks
-Drew
 
You are going to have trouble getting over 12% if you didn't step your fermentable additions. See this link for more info. They are trying to clone Sam Adams Utopias, there are decent notes to the thought process and execution to acheiving a high gravity brew.
 
Thanks for the prompt reply... However we placed 17 pounds of malt extract, and 6 pounds of corn sugar in a 4 gallon boil... I am not sure if that is enough to get it up there, but I have seen similar recipes with less that achieved 17%... Perhaps I did not pitch the yeast correctly... are there any write ups on pitching the white labs WLP099 yeast? Any help would be great.
Thanks
-Drew
 
Which White Labs yeast are you using? They make a super high gravity ale yeast that is supposedly good up to 25% alcohol. I've never used it but that's what there site says.

Ahh, you posted while I was writing. If you're using the WLP099 already, perhaps you neede a bigger starter?
 
Thanks for the prompt reply... However we placed 17 pounds of malt extract, and 6 pounds of corn sugar in a 4 gallon boil... I am not sure if that is enough to get it up there, but I have seen similar recipes with less that achieved 17%... Perhaps I did not pitch the yeast correctly... are there any write ups on pitching the white labs WLP099 yeast? Any help would be great.
Thanks
-Drew

That may be your problem, you may have overwhelmed your yeast. Take this with a grain of salt, because I have never personally done it, but most people I read of trying to get above say 12 or 13 percent, brew a wort around 1.100 and then make additions of fermentables throughout the primary of either extract or sugar and step it up a bit at a time. Also, the pitch rate would need to be massive, I would probably have brewed a nice session ale with that yeast, and then pitched this brew on the yeast cake.
 
you need to do a couple things...

First off, you need a MASSIVE starter. Better yet, brew a 5 gallon batch of beer with the WLP099 and pitch your 20% beer right on the cake. This is a difficult beer, and you'll need every last one of them to complete this task.

2nd, You need to step up your sugar additions. You cannot put 1.200 on a yeast cake and expect them to survive. Ferment the beer to 8%, then add more sugars to like 12% and aerate, repeat until they yeast give up (hopefully at 20%+). I'm doing a 20% batch in a month or so.. I plan on adding 12oz corn sugar twice a day, with O2, after a 8-9% malt hop bomb base beer.

3rd, Take care of your yeast. You need to consistently rouse the yeast to keep them working. Yeast in a cake are not converting sugars. Temperature control is key. You're going for maximum alcohol here, so you need to be in the upper range of the yeast. I'd say 68-72F is ideal without sacrificing too much fusel alcohols.

4th, Shoot for maximum attenuation. When you brew a 5% beer, you can get away with 70% attenuation. A 1.015 beer is totally drinkable. Well, when you are brewing a 1.200 beer, that leaves you at 1.060 which is enough residual sugar to brew an entire 2nd beer. you gotta mash low 148-149F, mash for a long time to get a complete conversion (2hr). You don't have to make the entire thing out of malt. 1.200 in 5 gallons is a hell of a lot of malt. Try a fraction of that and cut the rest with some totally fermentable sugar like corn sugar (or honey, belgian candi, etc). That'll help you nail a super high attenuation and dry out the beer a bit.

im sure there are a few other things im forgetting off the top of my head... those steps will get you higher than 12...

Oh... Its not uncommon for the beer to continue drying out over the next 6+ months. You'll need to age this a year+ anyways so whats the hurry. Still too sweet? Try beano.

Good luck!!
 
Im an engineering major at clemson university, and last year I attempted to grow a yeast that would be able to handle and grow in a high alcohol content with little inhibition. And I was able to grow a yeast that I used to make a 22% abv brew, with out having to do a lot of fiddling with my brew. Within the first 5 days I was at 8% by the 21 day I was at around 17%, and after 6 weeks 22%, so what I did to grow this yeast was I took a typical beer yeast(any works) and I grew it anarobically, then I took 5ml and grew it in another 1L beaker with 5% ethanol anarobically, a wekk later I took 5mL out and repeated with 7%, you can see the trend, I continued to do this till I was growing the yeast with 25% ethanol before growth after 3 weeks of growth I used that yeast to make an amazing brew (sorry on my iPhone if you have a question ask me)
 
Im an engineering major at clemson university, and last year I attempted to grow a yeast that would be able to handle and grow in a high alcohol content with little inhibition. And I was able to grow a yeast that I used to make a 22% abv brew, with out having to do a lot of fiddling with my brew. Within the first 5 days I was at 8% by the 21 day I was at around 17%, and after 6 weeks 22%, so what I did to grow this yeast was I took a typical beer yeast(any works) and I grew it anarobically, then I took 5ml and grew it in another 1L beaker with 5% ethanol anarobically, a wekk later I took 5mL out and repeated with 7%, you can see the trend, I continued to do this till I was growing the yeast with 25% ethanol before growth after 3 weeks of growth I used that yeast to make an amazing brew (sorry on my iPhone if you have a question ask me)

Interesting, did you not oxygenate so that you'd only get budding? Was it wort mixed with ethanol?
 
Interesting, did you not oxygenate so that you'd only get budding? Was it wort mixed with ethanol?

He may have used a broth not wort to grow the yeast there are several dextrose based broths (PDA, and YM are broths) used in labs for this. He also said he used a 1l beaker, I'm guessing a little swishy swishy to get some O2 in there...
 
I got the WL "irish ale" up to 13.2% abv by making 3 gallons of a medium gravity ale (a stout), adding 1 gallon of concentrated wort 2 days after pitching, and another concentrated gallon 2 days after that, aerating with each addition. Same yeast all the way.

Tossing any yeast into a 13% abv soup will stun it and most likely paralyze it permenantly.

I assume that their super high gravity yeast would hit at least 25% using a step method.
 
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