Should I use a high gravity yeast?

Ok I made a kitchen sink brew today. I mashed 6 lb golden promise, 2 lb Munich, 2 lb Carared, 4 oz roasted barley then I added in 1 lb wheat malt and 4 lb pilsen DME. I boiled it for 2 hours. I added in alot of hops (lost count of ounces).

I ended up with 5 gallons of dark brown wort with a starting gravity of 1.097 or 23.8 brix.

I pitched 2 vials of WL Irish Ale yeast.

I tasted the wort and it has a strong malty character but the hops balance it out. But the wort was thick.

Should I pitch some high gravity yeast or can the Irish Ale yeast WLP004 handle it?

amrmedic said:

Ok I made a kitchen sink brew today. I mashed 6 lb golden promise, 2 lb Munich, 2 lb Carared, 4 oz roasted barley then I added in 1 lb wheat malt and 4 lb pilsen DME. I boiled it for 2 hours. I added in alot of hops (lost count of ounces).

I ended up with 5 gallons of dark brown wort with a starting gravity of 1.097 or 23.8 brix.

I pitched 2 vials of WL Irish Ale yeast.

I tasted the wort and it has a strong malty character but the hops balance it out. But the wort was thick.

Should I pitch some high gravity yeast or can the Irish Ale yeast WLP004 handle it?

Click to expand...

Irish ale yeast can ferment it down to about 1.023 or so, so in that sense it can handle it.

But two packages is only about half or less of the amount you should use in a beer that big. It's severely underpitched, and that might cause it to finish higher than that.

This was a kitchen sink batch as I used whatever I had laying around. I wanted to use up what I had before it sat around too long and I did not even run this through a program before brewing. I am going to get some high grav yeast and run a starter tomorrow then I will pitch that in 4 days. By then the other yeast should almost be petered out by then.

I pitched a 3.5L starter of this same yeast today, and my gravity was only 1.087.. So, in you're case you were somewhere around 150 to 200 billion cells less than your beer needed..

Yeah thats what I figured. I underpitched, but the high gravity yeast should help it attenuate down. I figure I will let this age for a few months then bottle condition for a few more then drink around the Holidays. The accidental barleywine

amrmedic said:

Yeah thats what I figured. I underpitched, but the high gravity yeast should help it attenuate down. I figure I will let this age for a few months then bottle condition for a few more then drink around the Holidays. The accidental barleywine

Click to expand...

All things heal with time!

Just pitch a pack of 05

Hi

Thanks for the 05 advice.

Quick update. The 2 vials I had of WLP004 were in my fridge for 4 months, so after 24 hours of no fermentation I suspected they were no good. But I was in luck and found a package of Notty I just happened to leave in my freezer. So I rehydrated it, and pitched it.

The next day I had some airlock activity and I let it go. I awoke this morning to high krausen flowing out of my fermentation refrigerator. Dear lord, that stuff is impressive.
It didnt knock out my air lock, but the stuff was shooting out of it like a canon. I have now put a blow off tube in place (a little late). So I know I have active fermentation. This was my first time I ever used this yeast for fermentation. I have used it on some of my lagers and other ales that sat in secondary when I went to bottle.

BTW, this is one sticky mess to clean up.

Ok a follow up. I pitched the 2 vials of WLP irish yeast and no fermentation after 48 hours so I pitched a vial of high gravity WL yeast. After 24 hours, it blew up. After cleaning the mess and switching to a blow off tube, it fermented for a bout a solid week. I have let it rest now for 3 weeks since then, so 1 month in primary.

I moved it to secondary today and it has a great malt character but the heat is overpowering. It started out at 23.7 brix and today was 9 brix, so it wa 1.097 OG and FG is 0.998. Thats some great attenuation there. And for the record it is 13% ABV.

I hope to let mature in secondary until September then bottle conditionfor 3 months and enjoy at Christmas.

amrmedic said:

Ok a follow up. I pitched the 2 vials of WLP irish yeast and no fermentation after 48 hours so I pitched a vial of high gravity WL yeast. After 24 hours, it blew up. After cleaning the mess and switching to a blow off tube, it fermented for a bout a solid week. I have let it rest now for 3 weeks since then, so 1 month in primary.

I moved it to secondary today and it has a great malt character but the heat is overpowering. It started out at 23.7 brix and today was 9 brix, so it wa 1.097 OG and FG is 0.998. Thats some great attenuation there. And for the record it is 13% ABV.

I hope to let mature in secondary until September then bottle conditionfor 3 months and enjoy at Christmas.

Click to expand...

I think your FG is wrong. I'd recheck with a hydrometer to make sure.

I checked both on my hydrometer and refractometer. I just zero my refrac with distiller water. I was suspect of the 0.998 FG myself. Is it possible for a beer to ferment below 1.000?

I just had a tripple go 0.98, so yes but this was with 2.5lbs of Belgium sugar.

amrmedic said:

I checked both on my hydrometer and refractometer. I just zero my refrac with distiller water. I was suspect of the 0.998 FG myself. Is it possible for a beer to ferment below 1.000?

Click to expand...

Refractometer is for before you ferment, so no alcohol, just sugar. Alcohol will distort the reading making it inaccurate.

You can correct for the alcohol when using a refractometer. There are several programs that do that for you. The readings I got were corrected.