It's Barleywine time again and I have some yeast questions

So, I've been doing my research on this one (alot to do on the subject actually) and there's alot of different opinions on the subject so I thought I'd just go ahead and ask the questions I'm iffy on.

My plan is to do a big American Barleywine, around 13%. Do to yeast tolerances is it best to just use the California Ale yeast and take what I get? Or shall I do this. Pitch a California Yeast, wait until fermentation poops out, then pitch a nice starter of wine yeast to finish things off. That way it'll definitly carbninate in the bottle (which people seems to have a problem with on these big beers). If I go that route, what's a good wine yeast to use?

Or should I just perchase WLP099 Super High Gravity Yeast and go with that?

Also, half way through fermentation should I throw some yeast nutrients in there regardless of what yeast I use?

You'll definitely want to start with a normal ale yeast. Apparently the 099 is for distillers who are only interested in alcohol content and not delicious beery esters, etc.

Apparently any yeast strain can ferment to about 15% if you make a proper starter, etc. So I think you'll be fine during fermentation. The problem comes with the bottle conditioning.

If it were me, I'd buy a pack of US 05 and rehydrate for bottling.

Be prepared with a massive starter and aerate the living snot out of the wort.

Have you given any thought to your intended OG?

flyangler18 said:

Be prepared with a massive starter and aerate the living snot out of the wort.

Have you given any thought to your intended OG?

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I'm thinking around 1.120 and finish around 1.020. Still formulating the recipe and hops and such. Not even sure what yeast strain I want to go with yet.

I plan on brewing the "old monster" barley wine recipie from brewing classic styles. It calls for 4 yeast packages of american ale or an appropriate starter. I plan on making a 2 liter starter pitching the packet to that. Then allowing it to ferment and then stepping it up with another 2 liters of wort

The American Barleywine recipe in BCS is OG 1.115, 12.5% ABV and it says to use WLP001, Wyeast 1056, or Safale US-05, no mention of needing to add more at bottling or anything like that. Ferments at 68 F and needs a stable temperature so the yeast doesn't drop out prematurely. Lemme know when you're brewing, I'd love to come hang out and eat peppers for everyone's amusement. I've been trying to make it to one of those Lakeside meetings but the BJCP study group is on Wednesday nights just about every week until February.

I've never made a bareleywine, but do high O.G. meads...and we use what is called a yeast starter, and then also staggered nutrient additions. This helps feed the yeast, in an otherwise extremely sugary solution, so they don't become overwhelmed. you usually do additions at what are called sugar breaks, and these are usually done at 1/3, 1/2 and 3/4 sugar breaks. And contrary to a post further above, all yeasts do NOT take fermentation to about 15% abv.you will want an attentuative yeast (one that ferments wort thoroughly) with a high alcohol tolerance, such as Wyeast 1056 (American ale).

btw, that recipe is for a 12.5% barley wine

NotALamer said:

The American Barleywine recipe in BCS is OG 1.115, 12.5% ABV and it says to use WLP001, Wyeast 1056, or Safale US-05, no mention of needing to add more at bottling or anything like that. Ferments at 68 F and needs a stable temperature so the yeast doesn't drop out prematurely. Lemme know when you're brewing, I'd love to come hang out and eat peppers for everyone's amusement. I've been trying to make it to one of those Lakeside meetings but the BJCP study group is on Wednesday nights just about every week until February.

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Hmmm....someone knows me and my pepper habits...I wonder who this could be...shoot me a pm dude. I think I know who this is...

If you want to be 100% sure you'll have enough yeast... just brew a simple extract pale ale a week before the barley wine, and pitch onto the cake for that. I did that for the 12% ABV 10-10-10 brew, and it took off like a rocket and attenuated really well.

MacBruver said:

If you want to be 100% sure you'll have enough yeast... just brew a simple extract pale ale a week before the barley wine, and pitch onto the cake for that. I did that for the 12% ABV 10-10-10 brew, and it took off like a rocket and attenuated really well.

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When you do that, you don't have to worry about resanatising the carboy do you?

MacBruver said:

If you want to be 100% sure you'll have enough yeast... just brew a simple extract pale ale a week before the barley wine, and pitch onto the cake for that. I did that for the 12% ABV 10-10-10 brew, and it took off like a rocket and attenuated really well.

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+1

I brewed an amber that clocked in at 6.5% with WLP 001, when it was done, I pitced my bw onto it. By itself, it would have bween 13.5% +/-, I fed it incrementally 4.5 lbs of sugars and dme. It came down to 1.022. I don't remember all the numbers now, but I do remember the abv being around 18%.

imaguitargod said:

When you do that, you don't have to worry about resanatising the carboy do you?

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Nope, just toss the fresh wort in there. That's what I did.

Ya know, I've got a Double IPA in my main fermentor right now that should be ready for bottling right around when I'm going to brew the Barleywine. It's a massive beer so the yeasties should be decently aclimated to the high alcohol range already.

If I bottled it on Friday and brewed on Saturday is that too long of a strect to keep the yeast in the fermentor? Should I maybe rack it off the yeast cake and immedietly throw a starter's worth of DME in water onto the yeast cake so it doesn't dry out and then throw my ferm lock back on it?

imaguitargod said:

Ya know, I've got a Double IPA in my main fermentor right now that should be ready for bottling right around when I'm going to brew the Barleywine. It's a massive beer so the yeasties should be decently aclimated to the high alcohol range already.

If I bottled it on Friday and brewed on Saturday is that too long of a strect to keep the yeast in the fermentor? Should I maybe rack it off the yeast cake and immedietly throw a starter's worth of DME in water onto the yeast cake so it doesn't dry out and then throw my ferm lock back on it?

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How high was the OG of the IIPA?

If it was high, pitching onto the cake might not be a good idea. The IIPA yeast have been put through the ringer and may not be as healthy as you would like. This is why the previous poster mentioned making an APA for the cake.

If you decide to use this method however...

You should try to coordinate it so that they are happening at the same time.
Get all your bottling stuff together and stop just short of filling the bottles. Then brew the barleywing. While the wort is cooling, fill the bottles. The rack the wort onto the yeast cake.

Good luck.

Eric

EricCSU said:

How high was the OG of the IIPA?

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1.080

Thanks for the words of advice.



On a side note, I want to use liguid yeast. When people say use a big starter does that mean when I make my started to make it a "high gravity" starter, or just use a regular starter and pitch two yeast vials instead of one?

I dont see the problem with making a stepped starter like I plan on doing. That way you dont have too much yeast.

I would agree with making a 1.040-1.050 blonde/pale ale with 001/1056 and then using that cake. If it does not attenuate fully, then pitch an active starter of 099.

imaguitargod said:

On a side note, I want to use liguid yeast. When people say use a big starter does that mean when I make my started to make it a "high gravity" starter, or just use a regular starter and pitch two yeast vials instead of one?

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If you're gonna do a starter- there's no reason to spend the extra $7 on another vial of yeast. Just make a bigger starter. Personally I wouldn't even bother stepping it up. With good liquid yeast it's kind of a waste of time. Just do this:

1. make a gallon starter, pitch one vial of yeast
2. after a few days, transfer it to the fridge to get the yeast to drop out
3. siphon off the liquid, and let it come back up to room temperature
4. pitch the slurry into your barley wine

I've directly pitched vials of white labs yeast into 5 gallon batches without any issues... so making a gallon starter should be no problem at all for that amount of yeast.

For a beer this big a one gallon starter really won't give you as much yeast as you need. If you go to Jamil's pitching rate calculator, it will tell you you need 417 billion cells for a 1.12 ale. You can achieve this cell count with one vial of liquid yeast, and a 10.77 liter starter. This is a lot bigger than most people want to make for a starter, so you probably want to do multiple steps. How to Brew by John Palmer has a good chart for predicting cell counts based on starter sizes, but I don't have my copy with me. I would suspect that you want to do a one gallon starter, chill it, decant off the wort, and then add another gallon of wort, at the very least.

NotALamer said:

For a beer this big a one gallon starter really won't give you as much yeast as you need. If you go to Jamil's pitching rate calculator, it will tell you you need 417 billion cells for a 1.12 ale. You can achieve this cell count with one vial of liquid yeast, and a 10.77 liter starter. This is a lot bigger than most people want to make for a starter, so you probably want to do multiple steps. How to Brew by John Palmer has a good chart for predicting cell counts based on starter sizes, but I don't have my copy with me. I would suspect that you want to do a one gallon starter, chill it, decant off the wort, and then add another gallon of wort, at the very least.

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not true. According to the mr malty pitching calculator you will need a 3.75 liter stirred starter if you use 1 packet of yeast, 1.75 if you use 2 packets of yeast. So if you make a 2 liter starter, then step up another 2 liters you will have enough yeast

I don't think Passow has a stir plate, it makes a huge difference. Feel free to make some **** up and tell me I'm wrong though.

NotALamer said:

I don't think Passow has a stir plate, it makes a huge difference. Feel free to make some **** up and tell me I'm wrong though.

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I dont understand what you think I'm "making up?"

I don't know why you would assume he has a stir plate when it wasn't mentioned anywhere in the thread, and then tell me I'm wrong because a gallon would work with a stir plate.

NotALamer said:

I don't think Passow has a stir plate, it makes a huge difference.

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Nope, no stir plate just yet, going to make my own though sometime soon. I just manually swirl the liquid around a few times throughout the day.

NotALamer said:

Feel free to make some **** up

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Unicorns are allergic to grapes.

1.120 is no problem for WLP001, 1.140 isn't out of the question. Incremental feeding will help, if you are going to use sugar add it to the fermenter a few days in. Oxygenate it with an O2 stone at pitching and 12 hours after pitching (I would not even attempt a 1.120 beer without an O2 stone, sorry). Keep fermentation temperature in check. That's about it....

imaguitargod said:

Unicorns are allergic to grapes.

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Hahahahahahahahahahaha!

Saccharomyces said:

1.120 is no problem for WLP001, 1.140 isn't out of the question. Incremental feeding will help, if you are going to use sugar add it to the fermenter a few days in. Oxygenate it with an O2 stone at pitching and 12 hours after pitching (I would not even attempt a 1.120 beer without an O2 stone, sorry). Keep fermentation temperature in check. That's about it....

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wait, your suggesting i oxygenate once fermentation has started? that seems like a bad idea

chemman14 said:

wait, your suggesting i oxygenate once fermentation has started? that seems like a bad idea

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In this case it is not bad, because the yeast will gobble up the oxygen faster than it can oxidize the beer... and they need all the help they can get.

MacBruver said:

In this case it is not bad, because the yeast will gobble up the oxygen faster than it can oxidize the beer... and they need all the help they can get.

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hmm, OK. I was planning on asking for an o2 system for Christmas. Good thing I have this brew planned for after the new year

Well, as an update, I brewed it, nailed my SG and it's calming down on fermentation as we speak.

I want to throw some wine yeast into there and built those guys up a little so that when I rack it into my bottling bucket there will be some of those yeasties floating around in the high alcohol to carb the bottles.

What yeast should I use? I was looking at WLP720 and just throwing the vial in there.

I don't think you should pitch the wine yeast in while it's still fermenting. In fact, I don't think you should use wine yeast at all. Once there are no more fermentable sugars available in a wort/beer, yeast will settle to the bottom. Also, once alcohol levels reach a certain level, yeast will settle to the bottom (or die). Even though wine yeast are more tolerable to high alcohol, they will still settle out.

As I said above, you'll do better to pitch a small but healthy culture of new yeast at the time of bottling. Either rehydrate some dry yeast (which are already completely ready to start fermenting whatever bottling sugar you give them), or build a liquid yeast culture to high krausen (for the same reason) and then pitch at bottling.

I would much rather pitch the exact same yeast I did primary fermentation with - who knows if you introduce a different strain of yeast if they'll not only consume the bottling sugar you give them, but also any leftover sugars in the beer that your primary yeast couldn't?

As I said above, you'll do better to pitch a small but healthy culture of new yeast at the time of bottling. Either rehydrate some dry yeast

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Agreed. Supposedly S-05 is the same strain as WLP001, so I'd just pitch one pack of it and be done w/ it. Cheaper and easier IMO.

The BCS American Barleywine recipe is 1.115 with WLP001 and doesn't mention needing to pitch any more yeast, it just says, "When finished, carbonate the beer to approximately 2 to 2.5 volumes." I think it'll probably be fine without any additions. If it manages to ferment out the complex sugars to whatever alcohol level it ends up with, it shouldn't have any problem with corn sugar or whatever you're using to prime.

You pretty much only get one chance to bottle condition a beer. I'd rather spend the $1.50 on the dry yeast to help ensure carbonation, so you'll actually have a beer that you can save for many years and enjoy drinking.

kanzimonson said:

You pretty much only get one chance to bottle condition a beer. I'd rather spend the $1.50 on the dry yeast to help ensure carbonation, so you'll actually have a beer that you can save for many years and enjoy drinking.

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Well, technically if it doesn't carb I could throw it into a corny keg and prime it then rebottle...so I have two chances, but ya, not going that rout. I have too much trouble on my big beers not carbing that I think I'll go the wine yeast rout in bottling....

Bubt if it doesn't ferment out, I'll be adding wine yeast anyways, so problem solved. I'm taking a gravity reading tomarrow to see where it's at.

I made this same beer 2 vials of 001 into a 4L starter and went from 1.117 to 1.02 no problems. Just pitched applied temp control and waited till it was done.

I brewed "OLD MONSTER" on Nov 8th, bottled Dec 12th.

Yeast was WLP001.

I made a 1L starter and pitched on a pale ale. 3 weeks later I brewed a robust porter, pitched on the pale ale cake, right in the conical. 2 weeks later I brewed OLD Monster. For that, I actually drained the yeast from the conical into a sterilized 5L Erlenmeyer, and let it settle over night, the day before brewing. Decanted the porter from the slurry. I had 1L of pure slurry. Cleaned / Sanitized the fermenter and brewed. Was able to use 1oz of my homegrown Chinook at flame out, which was a nice bonus! Plus at the time of the yeast harvest, I saved another jar of yeast for my next batch. All from one original yeast vial, using proper sanitary practices.

OG for OMBW was 1.116
I aearated the wort for 30 min (aquarium pump / SS stone), pitched the slurry at 67 deg F. At 6 days I drained the trub. At 10 days, I roused the yeast (shook the conical). Ferm'd at temp controlled 68F. At 5 weeks I bottled it, pitching new US-05 for insurance purposes.

FG at the time of bottling was 1.019. That's 12.9% ABV and over 83% attenuation. Bottled 24x22 oz bottles, 4x750ml bottles, 1x16oz bottle. Tasted great out of the fermenter. Can't imagine what 6+ months is going to do for this beer.

The moral is, if you follow that recipe, and pitch enough healthy yeast, WLP001 will do the job, no problem. If anything, it over-attenuated!

Hope this helps all who read this post...

Cheers,

Mike

Well, I checked the gravity yesturday...1.050 after 2 weeks...eek! So I shooke the fermentor a little (splashed things around), and this morning I rocked it a little again. I'll check the gravity again in a few days......

May have to pitch wine yeast regardless to finish it off.

2 weeks and that level of attenuation? Did you oxygenate? I'm lazy, so what was the OG again?