Unexpected Twist to Brewday

Brewed a Schwartzbier last night, and with a couple of small exceptions, things went pretty smoothly.

I usually brew 3 gallon batches, but because this was a lager that was going to sit for three months, I wanted to do a full 5.5 gallon batch. In the process, I must have incorrectly measured my runoff, because when I went to dump the finished wort into my fermenter, I was shocked to discover I had about one gallon more than would fit in my fermenter (a five gallon fermenter with a lot of head space).

Curious. Anyhow, I didn't want to let it go to waste, so I threw it in a three gallon jug, kept the lid loose, and added some champagne yeast (the only extra yeast I had lying around the house).

Any idea what I'm going to get with this? I know some people have played around with adding champagne or wine yeasts in addition to beer yeasts (best example I've ever had: Enlightenment's Bier de Champagne). But what about adding only champagne yeast?

I suppose I'll find out in a couple weeks!

The Recipe:

3.5 lbs Briess Munich
3 lbs German 2row Pils
1 lb Weyermann Carafa II
1 lb German Dark Munich
1 lb Weyermann CaraFoam
1/4 lb Rice Hulls

Mash at 150°, 45 min.
160°, 30 min.

90 minute boil
.75 oz Hallertau (60 min)
.5 oz Hallerau (30 min)
1 oz Hallertau (1 min)

Red Star Montrachet
(Used Saflager 34/70 for the actual Schwartzbier)

I've fermented a beer using only wine yeast. It was interesting, took several months for the flavors to mellow out (wine yeast tastes pretty strong). Near the end of the keg, probably 5 months after I brewed it, the beer was tasting pretty good. It was a blonde recipe with about 5 lbs of cranberries added to the secondary, so it was quite tart/sour, and the wine yeast contributed to that a good bit.

Haha nice! The same thing happened to me this weekend while brewing a Bock, and I did the exact same thing!

Just pulled a sample out of that baby and it actually tasted really damn good. The gravity is at right around 1.010, and its crystal clear. Gonna throw this in a couple of bottles tomorrow and carb it up!

I know this is ancient history, but why didn't you just reserve a tiny bit of your starter to pitch onto the extra gallon? Sure, it would mean you underpitched a bit on both, but wine yeast on a beer seems very scary to me.

Brooklyn Brewings "Black Ops" is made with champagne yeast

rwinzing said:

Brooklyn Brewings "Black Ops" is made with champagne yeast

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I believe it is carbed with champagne yeast

dougdecinces said:

I know this is ancient history, but why didn't you just reserve a tiny bit of your starter to pitch onto the extra gallon? Sure, it would mean you underpitched a bit on both, but wine yeast on a beer seems very scary to me.

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Not scary at all...just another set of yeast strains to use. There is a great brewing network podcast with Shea Comfort about using wine yeast in beer. Wine yeast are the same species as brewers yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) - though champagne yeast is different - and have their own flavor profiles that can be used to a brewer's advantage if used properly. I highly suggest listening to that BN podcast - it is probably their most informative episode (in addition to the wine yeast info, there's also a ton of great info on using oak).

I did the same once, and I pitched the 5 gallons, swirled to mix and then siphoned 1 gal of pitched wort to another jug. Then topped off with the rest of the extra wort

Just bottled the champagne version and racked the lager version. I was surprised that they attenuated nearly the same and they look identical (I expected one to be clearer than the other). The taste, though, couldn't have been more different (though that was no surprise). While the lager version was rich and malty (with more of the black malt flavor than I wanted, unfortunately), the champagne version was bright, bitter (not hoppy bitter), and shockingly dry. I really masked the malt profile.

I'll be curious to try it once it's done bottle conditioning. And I think if nothing else, I'm curious to try working with champagne or other wine yeasts in different circumstances and in combination with various ale/lager strains.

rinhaak said:

Just bottled the champagne version and racked the lager version. I was surprised that they attenuated nearly the same and they look identical (I expected one to be clearer than the other).

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I'm surprised they attenuated the same. I would have expected the lager yeast to have finished lower since it has the ability to metabolize more types of sugars (maltotriose, in particular). Most people think that a wine yeast, particularly champagne yeast, will completely dry out a beer, but they are more likely to have a lower attenuation. Wines dry out because they have only simple sugars that are easily fermented, so even an ale yeast would make a dry wine. Beer wort contains more complex sugars, some of which are unfermentable by various strains, so a wine yeast cannot dry out a beer.

I didn't know this about wine yeasts and wine. Makes my results all the more curious.

Granted, I was fermenting the wine yeast example in pretty warm weather (room temp when temps were in the 80's and outdoor temps in the high 90's), so the yeast cells were likely metabolizing a lot faster.