barley wine ferment...

brewed this beast up on 12/31/06

15 lbs pale malt
5 lbs munich malt
.5 lbs biscuit
.5 lbs special b

og was 1.098 for my six gallon batch.

pitched atop white labs irish ale yeast cake from previous batch. wl says this yeast can handle higher gravity...

almost a month later gravity is down to 1.035ish

i want to get it down around 1.025 or so, but don't know if the irish yeast is really up to the task. i've been swirlling the fermenter once a week to try and rustle up the yeast, which seems to have helped a bit. at two weeks into the ferment the gravity was 1.045ish

i'm reluctant to pitch champaign yeast, i don't want this beer too dry. any thoughts or suggestions?

what temperature did it ferment at?



I would rack it off and up the temperature a couple of degrees and see if that helps.



currently your at 64% attenuation, but if you want to get to 1.025 that would equal 74%, and white labs lists wlp004 as having between 69% and 74%. So achieving 74% might be a little bit of a stretch at this point.


Dave

You're pushing the limit on that yeast, but most of the very high gravity yeasts have high attenuation and you don't want that. (Wlp099 can hit >80%) I'd rack it to a secondary & give it another month. The yeast is low flocculation and you should have plenty in suspension.

I haven't had a problem with champaign yeast drying out barleywines, it doesn't seem to process the heavy sugars.

jager, how does one figure percentage of attenuation? Is there a formula?

thanks, -p

it's been at 64 F for the duration.

Try some Lalvin D-47 yeast. It isn't champagne yeast, but is still good up to 14-15%.

steve

I'd try to bump the temperature up to 68 or 70.


attenuation = original gravity minus final gravity divided by original gravity then times that number by 100 (but when you do the gravities don't include the 1 (like 1.050 would be just .05)