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Sucrose would require the yeast to produce invertase, in a high alcohol environment I'm not sure how good the yeast would be at adapting to produce invertase? It might work... Inverting the sugar using an acid and heat before adding would certainly work, but it'd be a pain compared to dumping in dextrose I would think.
Got it, thanks.
 
One other question, is there any particular reason to use dextrose over sucrose? My understanding was that sucrose is more fermentable. I'm not really sure on the difference in flavor, post fermenation.

You could use table sugar, but dextrose is easier to dissolve and lessens the chances of (more) cidery off-tastes. :mug:
 
Coastarine,
From earlier:
Yeasties destroyed the last sugar addition. More oxygen and sugar went in today. I'm stirring up the cake with my aeration stone and racking cane, then simply sprinkling the corn sugar on top. There was mention about added nucleation sites making for a bubbly mess... didn't have that problem. It may be more of an issue in a carboy...
 
what he said...

I'm done adding oxygen to this soup... so I switched to my large plastic brew spoon. I crack it open, stir the heck out of it, pour in a pound, stir until dissolved, close it up.
 
I'm done adding oxygen to this soup... so I switched to my large plastic brew spoon. I crack it open, stir the heck out of it, pour in a pound, stir until dissolved, close it up.
C'mon...admit it...you talk to it don't you?:D
 
I just got this visual of you at the base of the castle (which is a huge fermenter bucket)...yelling up for it to finish and age quickly...and it yelling; "I fart in thy general direction!" and throwing a cow out of the fermenter.:D
 
Here's an actual visual for you guys. This stuff is THICK. There is a MASSIVE amount of yeast in this thing. I'm up to 8 pounds of dextrose on top of the 1.091 initial gravity. The thing shows no signs of stopping. The pound of dextrose I added last night is done and gone. I bet if I checked gravity before this last addition it would be LOWER. At this point, this thing has so much yeast in it, it'll eat ANYTHING I put in there!!!

480764878_C4rwB-XL.jpg



Oh, another note... I finally hit the point where the CO2 in solution will foam up the fermenter. I stirred it up real good like I didnt in the past, but I didn't add oxygen. I sprinkled in like 1/2 pound of dextrose on top and the thing started foaming up real good. It almost went over the top. You can see the line from last night. At this point I gotta be REAL careful adding extra sugar. Add a little, let it foam up, and let it settle down.

Also, notice the level of the liquid in the bucket. I'd say its pretty damn close to 6.5 gallons now. The yeast cake this thing makes in 1 days is impressive. Its gotta be over an inch thick at the bottom in 24 hours. I also added in a full 5 gallon starter cake for the WLP099 which was damn near 3/4 gallon of pure sediment.

I tasted it too... its CRAZY bitter and has a lot of winey flavors. I'm definitely going to need to keep adding sugar until the yeast won't go anymore. Other threads I saw landed the FG at like 1.030. I'll probably need to reach that in order to balance out the extreme hop bitterness. It sounds insane, but thats 3 MORE pounds of dextrose on top of what I already have in there IF THE YEAST STOP EATING NOW!!! That would already be 11 pounds of dextrose. I only have 5 more pounds of dextrose here, so that may mean I gotta make a run to the LHBS to pick up another 5 pounds! HAHAH!
 
The first thing I thought when I looked at that picture was...ummmm, I want a sip! :)

That is one insane brew you got going there...love it!
 
If you dipped your finger in that you might pull out a boody bone.

That is a ton of sugar. I hope it tastes good, you're talking about 40% dextrose!
 
This sounds like an awesome brew! I wanna give it a shot when I get my tax return. Do you think oxygen is a neccesity or could I get by with shaking and stirring the bucket? Thanks!
 
The oxygen is necessary. The O2 rig is relatively simple and cheap, the bottles are relatively cheap, and its a kick butt way to add oxygen to your brews. You can get away with shaking on weak brews, but this is extreme brewing at the limits of the yeast. You gotta help them bring their A+ game.
 
Alrighty, I have a few projects I need to get done before I invest in anything else so this brew will have to wait. Hopefully I can get this thing started by the end of march. Hopefully that will be enough time to age for winter drinking
 
This looks pretty good. I wish I could try some. Might have to make a batch myself when I finally get a decent place to take on such a project.
 
until it tastes good I guess... I figure a year? I'll probably bottle up a few Fischer double deuces and forget about em...
 
1.091+8 pounds of dextrose (1.165)... current gravity is 1.016. Stirred it up, added another pound of dextrose, closed it up.
 
I have a ~8% Imperial stout that is stuck in its fermentation process at an SG of 1.027. How do I start that back up??? I harvested the yeast from the stout's primary, and prepared a healthy starter with yeast energizer and corn sugar. Is it ok to add this into the stout? And will it add off flavors?
 
Yeah, precisely. Sirsloop, you reckon that could be too dry?

1.016. Wow!

It is too dry... totally. Its ridiculously bitter right now. I'm gonna keep adding sugar until the yeast die, then sweeten it to taste. Kinda what the mead crowd does. That part of the process will take place a month down the road after the last addition fails to ferment. I need to secondary this beer to clear out all the yeast + dry hop it still.
 
I have a ~8% Imperial stout that is stuck in its fermentation process at an SG of 1.027. How do I start that back up??? I harvested the yeast from the stout's primary, and prepared a healthy starter with yeast energizer and corn sugar. Is it ok to add this into the stout? And will it add off flavors?

hijack attempt eh?

I would stir up the cake, warm it up, and see if it starts on its own. If not, grab a packet of US-05 or Nottinghams and simply pitch that to finish it up. Could be its just a lot of non-fermentable sugars in there from either extract, crystal grain, or high mash temp.
 
I have a ~8% Imperial stout that is stuck in its fermentation process at an SG of 1.027. How do I start that back up??? I harvested the yeast from the stout's primary, and prepared a healthy starter with yeast energizer and corn sugar. Is it ok to add this into the stout? And will it add off flavors?
Have you tried stirring the yeast up with a sanitized spoon and upping the temperature a little? I'd try that first, as it might be all you need to drop a few more points. [EDIT: DOH! Beaten to it!]
 
Thank you both Sirsloop and Danek! I stirred the cake and It seems to be working quite nicely. Ill let you know if it continues to the target FG.
 
I harvested the yeast from the stout's primary, and prepared a healthy starter with yeast energizer and corn sugar.
Is this a good way to make a starter for high grav brew? Yeast Energizer is the stuff for 'waking up' yeast that didn't finish (I dunno what it does wrt yeast health and future fermenting power) and it seems corn sugar might make the yeast lazy wrt fermentables (only fermenting the simplest/easiest to ferment). It seems for high grav you need a lot of yeast but it seems it should be healthy as possible and not 'lazy' (for lack of a better word). I don't do high grav brews yet so I'm sincerely asking.

sirsloop brewed a pre-batch just to get a big honkin' slurry of uber-healthy yeast.
 
Yeah, I wouldn't use corn sugar... swap it to DME and you'll be fine. I also used servomyces, go-ferm, and fermaid-k throughout this process.
 
1.091 + 10 pounds of dextrose (1.183) in... still bubblin!

So I think its safe to say I'm going to be hitting at least 1.200 OG on this one. At this point I could add in another three pounds of dextrose, some will still ferment, and it will be balanced sweetness wise. Time will tell how this one ends up. If I end up getting the OG to 1.020 and finish at 1.030... that's 25% ABV!!! That's only 4 more pounds of dextrose including what I added today.
 
Have you checked the gravity lately? Mine bubbled the same as the OG climbed, but the yeast started to slow down in the higher alchohol levels. Towards the end it was bubbling around the same amount but couldn't even eat .5 points after a couple of days, so I had to stop adding sugar.

Mine finished at 1.030 and is plenty sweet in my opinion. From what I have heard DFH 120 min IPA is in the 1.040s, but I have never tested myself.
 
Yesterday it was 1.018 and still bubblin away...I'll check again tomorrow afternoon and see where its at. One thing I noticed is after I add dextrose a lot of the CO2 in solution comes out and it takes a while before the airlock bubbles again. If no more C02 is being produced and there is none left in solution to trick you... then the only CO2 thats bubbling out is newly created. Newly created = more alcohol. Anyways, as I approach 11-12+ pounds of dextrose I'll be watching the gravity closely.
 
I can't even begin to think about how to bottle condition this stuff, haha. I guess you gotta just see how far you can push the yeast, and still leave it a little room to go, eh? or are you just gonna force carb this stuff?

Also I think your current OG (if that makes any sense) is more like 1.173... assuming the dextrose gets you 40 points per pound per gallon.
 
I'm going to keg and force carb it. I can pour beer into bombers afterwards. Also, a pound of corn sugar in a gallon of water is roughly 1.046...
 
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