Diagnosing an inexplicable problem

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kanzimonson

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In short, I got slightly less attenuation than expected on a barleywine. I'm not panicking or unhappy with the results, nor do I plan on doing anything to fix it, but I'm trying to understand why.

Jamil's American Barleywine recipe, with the only difference that I pitched with 1968 London ESB. But keep reading before you jump to conclusions.

-OG 1.104
-Mashed 90min. Started at 152* and continually fell. At the 60min mark I had full conversion and it was down to 149*. At the end it was 146*.
-I also don't mash out so I suppose I continued to have conversion through most of the (fly) sparge
-Pitched appropriate sized starter of 1968 (actually, probably 5-10% more than needed)
-Starter had lots of yeast nutrient and energizer in it
-oxygen from a red cylinder for 75 seconds
-fermentation began within 12-18 hours, can't really remember but it was as expected
-pitched at 62* and let rise to 68* over 4 days.
-when the gravity was about 1.050 I added enough granulated sugar to raise the theoretical OG to 1.115
-I also added a rehydrated pack of US-05
-I allowed to ferment for 1 day at 70-72*
-Removed from fridge and got a heating pad around it and held around 75-77 for 10 days.
-FG 1.034

So without the granulated sugar I'm looking at 67% attenuation. This might be expected with the 1968 strain alone but the US-05 should have helped bring that lower.

Again, I'm not depressed about the results - I feel it's going to taste pretty good. It's just that when I look at all the facts, it seems like I should have gotten to 1.030 at least.

Could it be alcohol tolerance? Standing just at 11% now...
 
subscribed because I'm looking at doing a barleywine.

How long total did you ferment? I've heard it can take up to a couple months but that is just ballpark and from someone who I know that's done it. If it's not all the way attenuated, you could get bottle bombs, which is what happened to the person who did it. I think he waited a month.

OTOH, for that high an OG, that is pretty damn good if you ask someone who doesn't know much. I could imagine that it's possible that attenuation numbers are estimates based on more ideal conditions that you put them yeasties though.

Good Job!!!
 
Probably alcohol tolerance.

I would have step fermented for that high ABV.

Not a big problem in my eyes, but bottle carbing may be impossible.
 
It's been a few weeks and I don't have my notes in front of me but here's my estimate:

-Pitch at 62, 4 days to 68
-Day 5 or 6 pitched the extra yeast and sugar
-Day 6 or 7, 70-72
-removed from fridge, and it's spent at least 10-14 days at 77

In truth, it has been completely clarified (77 degree clarification) for about 5 days or more.

It definitely is not still fermenting. I've made pretty big beers in the past and I've found that you can be pretty sure they're done in about 20 days, sometimes as little as 14.

Most of my beers are in the 1.065 range and I can be drinking them within 6-10 days, but with these giant ones I plan them out to take a long time and so I don't really care if I have them waiting for a month but I think it's not totally necessary.
 
Step fermentation involves brewing some lets say,3.5 gallons of 1.080 wort, cooling and pitching. Giving the yeast a day or 2. Then brewing 1.5 gallons of some more concentrated wort, and pitching that onto the already fermenting wort, aerating (ideally) and allowing the wort to begin primary fermentation again.

Obviously to achieve a specific OG, complex and possibly impossible calculations would be required.

I prefer this method for BIG Beers, despite not knowing the exact ABV.
 
That's a pretty cool technique although I can see some problems with it. Obviously the main use of this is for huge beers, so the biggest issue is one you already mentioned - to step it up to something that has a theoretical OG of 1.100, your "top up" wort would have some ridiculously high gravity. So high in fact that you'd be required to make it with extract. While I'm not against extract overall, I kinda feel like we should be able to make big beers through normal methods if we're smart about it.

But funny you should mention the idea of really concentrated wort. I didn't mention this in the OP because I didn't want to add too many unnecessary details - at the time that I prepared the extra sugar to boost the OG, I was also pressure canning some wort for future starters. So my barleywine recipe is actually 9 gallons split between two fermentors. To prepare the extra sugar, I decided I would pressure can the sugar, split evenly into two quarts. But I didn't want to be adding that much diluted sugar water to the barleywine because even though I was adding sugar, the extra volume would actually dilute the batch. So I also added enough DME to make it equal an OG of 1.105. After I pressure canned it I did the math for the gravity of the quart jar and it was 1.277!! It was flowing like a light syrup! It was amazing... and totally impractical.
 
I have heard of folks using a wine yeast to finish big beers. No personal experience with it, though. I would personally not keg a barley wine mostly because I don't want to tie up my keg for months (or years). I bottled a barley wine in July and it is only now starting to be drinkable. Some of it will be around next year this time. Just a thought. And it took a long time for the bottles to show any sign of carbonation...
 
Actually, AG wort can be boiled down to nearly any concentration.

Boil down a normal 5 gallon batch to 2 gallons and it will be pretty damned strong.
 
I have heard of folks using a wine yeast to finish big beers. No personal experience with it, though. I would personally not keg a barley wine mostly because I don't want to tie up my keg for months (or years). I bottled a barley wine in July and it is only now starting to be drinkable. Some of it will be around next year this time. Just a thought. And it took a long time for the bottles to show any sign of carbonation...

I don't know much about wine yeast, but I wonder about the fact that although they have high alcohol tolerance, do they have the capability to ferment the higher chain sugars that are left at the end of fermentation? I mean, there's not much of those sugars in grape juice. But I don't know.

And in reality, I'll carbonate in keg and then beer gun 'em into bottles after some bulk aging.
 
Actually, AG wort can be boiled down to nearly any concentration.

Boil down a normal 5 gallon batch to 2 gallons and it will be pretty damned strong.

But at what flavor cost? Have you had Green Flash's barleywine? They say on their website that they have a four hour boil. If you want to taste what kettle-produced melanoidins taste like, this is the beer. For me, it's a sickeningly caramelly flavor... almost roasty or smokey. I've never tasted anything like it.
 
But at what flavor cost? Have you had Green Flash's barleywine? They say on their website that they have a four hour boil. If you want to taste what kettle-produced melanoidins taste like, this is the beer. For me, it's a sickeningly caramelly flavor... almost roasty or smokey. I've never tasted anything like it.

OK then take 25 lbs of grain and only the first runnings.....;)

Extract seems like the way, but to each their own!:mug:
 
kanzimonson said:
And in reality, I'll carbonate in keg and then beer gun 'em into bottles after some bulk aging.

Makes sense to me
 
If I were you, I'd pick up some amylase enzyme, take a pint or two of the batch and put it in a beaker or starter vessel, pitch maybe an 1/8th TSP of the amylase into the vessel, and see if it starts fermenting again after 24 hrs (make sure to get a little yeast in the starter vessel).

If it starts fermenting, then it means you probably have residual long chain sugars (even though your temperatures would seem to indicate otherwise).

I always keep amylase around for this purpose - it's a great way to tell if there is a problem with your fermenting wort or a problem with your yeast.

In addition, I've had the exact same thing happen on one or two of my beers: WY 1968 didn't quite attenuate as much as I wanted, so I added dry yeast to the wort with no success. Added an active starter of WLP001 and did have success.
 
Kinda wondering if your result isn't fairly typical. I think I ended up with about 66/69% attenuation myself. Every barley wine I have ever had has been on the sweet side.
 
If I were you, I'd pick up some amylase enzyme, take a pint or two of the batch and put it in a beaker or starter vessel, pitch maybe an 1/8th TSP of the amylase into the vessel, and see if it starts fermenting again after 24 hrs (make sure to get a little yeast in the starter vessel).

If it starts fermenting, then it means you probably have residual long chain sugars (even though your temperatures would seem to indicate otherwise).

I always keep amylase around for this purpose - it's a great way to tell if there is a problem with your fermenting wort or a problem with your yeast.

In addition, I've had the exact same thing happen on one or two of my beers: WY 1968 didn't quite attenuate as much as I wanted, so I added dry yeast to the wort with no success. Added an active starter of WLP001 and did have success.

Hey we're both in Cville!

So this might be a dumb question, but isn't there definitely and obviously some long chain starches in there? I mean, what else is making the gravity high? Doesn't every beer have some leftover starches and that's kinda accepted in beer brewing?

I'm pretty against the (frequent) suggestion that people use amylase to restart stuck fermentations and get more attenuation. I understand that this is not what you're suggesting, but I see this all the time on this forum. Basically, if you're turning your beer into an experiment, it's not likely that you'll fix it. That's why I'm pretty set on accepting this beer for how it turned out and if I don't like it I'll brew it again sometime.

I'm thinking that you might be right that dry yeast doesn't have the chutzpa to get going in a high alcohol environment. Next time I think I'll pitch a liquid culture that's actively fermenting.
 
Do you go to the CAMRA meetings here in town? I've only been to one or two but am hoping to make it to more.

Yeah, I'm on the same page as you in terms of not using amylase every time there is a stuck fermentation. I've got a Lagunitas Brown Shugga clone right now that went from 1.099 to 1.030. I would love for it to finish nearer to 1.023/1.024 like they get at Lagunitas, but I'm not sure I'm going to start messing with it just to get 1 or 2 degree Plato.

I do, however, like to know what causes underattenuation, which is why I use the starter / amylase method to diagnose improper mashing / sparging techniques.

Check this link out if you have time.

http://brewery.org/brewery/library/enzymes595.html

There are definitely long chain starches in your wort (even if you mash at low temps), but my understanding is that higher mash temps or improper conversion can lead to an excessive quantity of long chain sugars.

But I'm by no means the expert. I do know, however, that amylase has helped me fix several of my beers, but only because I was able to stop the enzyme activity when I reached a specific gravity (by crash cooling), and because I keg and don't have to worry about carbing bottles with beer that still has enzymes that might still be viable and cause bottle bombs ??
 
1) Thanks for the enzyme article. My concern with using enzymes post-boil is how to make it stop, and the related problem of over-attenuating a batch. In my batch, I have 34 gravity points per gallon made up of, I assume, unfermentables... these sugars/starches have to be contributing something to flavor, body, mouthfeel, etc. If you strip all this out, can your result still truly be called beer?

I'm not even asking this as a BJCP style question - I'm asking if the beer ventures beyond something that we taste and truly know as beer. I'm sure it tastes like a hoppy, alcoholic, grainy, carbonated liquid which pretty well describes beer as a whole, but what else? Or what is missing?

I guess I might be a purist, but then again I'm not a Reinheitsgebot guy so... still mulling it over I guess!

Not many people talk about using enzymes in the mash to speed up or intensify the completeness of conversion. I'd like to hear more about that, though it still makes me pose my "beer ethics" questions from above.

2) I've only been to a few CAMRA meetings - just don't have the time. I have a baby and I own a bakery in town (Great Harvest). Good club and all, and I'm a member mostly for the discount at Fifth Season.
 
This happened to my big beer (Belgian Dark Strong)...it finished at 1.035 from 1.107. My conversion was good, it calculated at about 95% in the MLT. Next time I plan on using the WLP099 Super High Gravity yeast and doing a huge starter.

Mixing yeast can be problematic...some strains will kill other strains and wine yeast cannot breakdown any of the maltoses, just simple sugars which your beer yeast have already assaulted. Wine yeast will kill beer yeast, it is designed to. It works great for bottle conditioning because it's high alcohol tolerant and it only has to work simple sugar...and who cares if it kills beer yeast at that point.

The other options are to work in other strains once you know the current strain is finished....and add it as a starter at high krausen.

I think the key is a very big starter with a very high alcohol tolerant yeast like the 099.
 
I don't think amylase is a good idea. Let the beer finish where it wants to. The only "problem" I see with your process is the re-addition of the US-05. When you added that yeast, even though it was rehydrated, the beer was already 6.7 ABV- that is a very unfriendly place for fresh yeast to land. I would imagine you lost a ton of that US-05 right away, so you'd still be basically working off the attenuation powers of the WLP002.
 
I can imagine how dry yeast is a weiner when it comes to entering an already fermenting beer, but I did rehydrate it using the exact directions in How To Brew.

I guess dry yeast in that "waiting phase" still doesn't compare to an actively fermenting starter.
 
And just to clarify: not suggesting you use amylase on the whole batch, just use it on a small sample to determine if long chain sugars may be an issue, or if you've just hit the yeast's ABV threshold.
 
I can imagine how dry yeast is a weiner when it comes to entering an already fermenting beer, but I did rehydrate it using the exact directions in How To Brew.

I guess dry yeast in that "waiting phase" still doesn't compare to an actively fermenting starter.

It's not so much about the alcohol, both WLP002 and US-05 have no problems with 6.7% ABV, but it's the shock of going from a neutral environment with no nutrients or alcohol (rehydrating in water) to a very low pH and high toxin (alcohol) environment.

A starter is chilling out around 4% abv when you pitch (assuming a 1.040 starter) and is dumped into a nutrient-rich, more moderate pH, zero-toxin environment.
 
Well, you already know 1968 is only good to 9% and it's also highly flocculant so when it's done, it's done done. When you say appropriate starter, what exactly do you mean? What you think is appropriate may be less then I'd recommend. The best luck I've had with fermenting beers bigger than 1.100 is to make a 5 gallon starter and at that point, the strain of yeast is of little concern.

My second question is how confident are you in your thermometer. If it reads 3-4F too low, it would explain a lot. If anything, it's better to start low near 148 and then hit it with a small boiling water addition to get it up to 155 for the last 30 minutes.
 
I used mrmalty and yeastcalc for starters to check the range and then made something slightly bigger than that.

An entire 5gal "starter" for a big beer? Seems kinda excessive and verging on overpitching. What kind of pitch rate are you going for in big beers?

As for thermometers, I have a thermapen that I use to calibrate and verify every thermometer, every brew day.
 
In theory true, but I've made three barleywines and the two that I pitched on a low gravity batch yeast cake won at national/large regional comps and the one that used a moderate starter got stuck too sweet. It's a small sample size for sure, but I do believe that once you break 1.100 or so, all calculations and theory goes out the window.
 
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