What happens to a high gravity beer if you don't add champagne yeast?

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I used my first own recipe the other day (all previous batches have been made from kits) and in an attempt to give the beer a little more strength and body, added some extra malt extract. I think I overdid it, seeing as my starting gravity was much higher than I had planned (around 1.120), but does anyone know what will potentially happen if I don't add champagne yeast? I know that regular ale yeast will only take the fermentation so far, but if I stop there will the beer be overly sweet because of the unfermented sugars or will it be okay? Should I add champagne yeast to continue the fermentation? Thanks.

That's quite an O.G. I have that dialled in at somewhere between 13 and 16% abv. You'll have to add champagne yeast, and ferment some more, I would think. If you don't, and you bottle, and a few yeast cells manage not to die in that environment, then the pressure will slowly go up and up and up until your bottles explode.

I don't have much experience brewing barley wines, so hopefully someone else will step in here.

Thank you, I appreciate the input. Should I do this in the primary fermenter or after I rack it over to the secondary? I know it's going to be pretty strong, but I'm still a novice at this and it was my first attempt at creating my own recipe. Thanks again, Sasquatch, and to anyone else who replies.

You sure about that gravity? Why don't you post the recipe.

I don't think it matters when you add the yeast, particularly. Janx is right though... that's a HELL of an OG. How did you manage it?

I thought it was pretty high too, higher than what I was expecting. Here's what I did:
6.6 lbs Northwestern Gold Malt Extract
2.0 lbs Muntons Plain Light DME
.5 lbs crystal malt
.5 lbs Belgian black malt
.25 lbs Belgian chocolate malt
.25 lbs British roasted barley unmalted
1.0 oz Northern Brewer hop pellets (bittering)
1.0 oz Willamette hop pellets (finishing)

Is this an unreasonable recipe for my first attempt at not using a kit? Based on this, do you think my reading is off? Thanks all.

Doing a quick calculation with ProMash I get an OG of 1.074 with the ingredients you listed. (for a 5 gallon batch) How much water did you add and how many gallons do you have in the fermenter? You may want to add some pre-boiled/ cooled water to bring the gravity down.
You could keep it as is and call it a Barley Wine but I don't think it would be balanced with the amount of hops in the recipe.

Just a question here.....did you happen to take that reading straight out of your boil pot (concentrated wort)? Like before you put it in the primary and topped it off to 5 gallons (or a little more)? With that recipe you've only got about 7 3/4 lbs of fermentables (considering the LME is 20% water). No way you'd get an O.G. that high without adding a whole lot more ferm. sugars. Your recipe should be around 1.074ish.

Check your Hydrometer too, and make sure the little spot of glue that holds the paper/scale inside hasn't broken loose and allowed the scale to move.

Thanks for the suggestions. The reading was taken from a sample out of the primary fermenter, just after I had added enough water to bring it up to the 5 gallon mark. I thought that the reading was a little high also, seeing as some the recipes I based mine on didn't have starting gravities anywhere near what I got. Since two people said I should have a reading around 1.074, any thoughts on why I got what I did? Also, given this gravity, is there a need to add champagne yeast at this point or will ale yeast still do the trick? Thanks

Hydrometer readings are so easy to be misread.... 8.6 pounds is not a lot. Certainly not to give a reading like that.....

I would not use champagne yeast.... ale yeast will do you well. I have used it for stuff that I want to make wine with. You certainly dont want your beer tasting like wine though I have no clue what putting champagne yeast in beer will do.

Champagne yeast is just about the most neutral yeast in existance. It won't add flavors to your ale, in fact, wine yeasts in general don't add much flavor. Even at the corrected SG, you are pushing the limit for most ale yeasts. A Strong Ale yeast might be able to handle it, but I'd add champagne yeast to the primary after a few days. It isn't as fast as an ale yeast, so most of the fermentation will be done by the ale yeast.

Most of the time high/low OG readings are due to lack of mixing. Since more air is better at the beginning of a ferment, mix hard.

Thanks David, and to all. I racked the beer over the the secondary tonight and pitched champagne yeast-it might have been okay without it, but it still tasted a little sweet, like there was some unfermented sugars left in it. Visible fermentation has been done for a few days, so I don't think that was the problem. I'll keep you all posted and let you know in a few weeks how things turned out. Thanks again for helping out this newbie to the brewing world!

A hindsight comment about champagne yeast...a few brewers I know preach against using it for reasons of unintended impact to a beer's taste and dryness. In general, if you simply pitch enough of the yeast appropriate for your beer (whatever style it is), either by doing a good starter or adding 2 or more tubes/packets/pouches, you should be fine.

FYI, some words about champagne yeast here which I found insightful: http://***********/mrwizard/1188.html

There are some brewing yeasts out there that can really go the distance, Some of the Turbo yeasts, with their wacky fermentation rituals can give you amazingly strong beers with too much flavor. Are there any threads on monster yeasts or should we get one going?

Wine yeasts and turbo yeasts will all leave your ale bone dry. Turbo yeasts are fine if you keep the temperatures down (like 65F), but they can generate a lot of heat.

david_42 said:

Wine yeasts and turbo yeasts will all leave your ale bone dry. Turbo yeasts are fine if you keep the temperatures down (like 65F), but they can generate a lot of heat.

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I was wondering... how is it that sweet wines become sweet wines without becomming bone dry. I mean eventually the yeast has got to burn out and leave the wine sweet... is it just different types of wine yeast do different things?

Thanks, Thor, for the info on the Champagne yeast, I'll definately keep it in mind. Next time I think I'll steer clear of it. So far I've had the champagne yeast in for 24 hours and there has been no visible activity-is this normal? All I see is a strange "layer" at the top where some of the particles from the primary have settled, but otherwise nothing. Anyone else experience this?

Michael_Schaap said:

I was wondering... how is it that sweet wines become sweet wines without becomming bone dry. I mean eventually the yeast has got to burn out and leave the wine sweet... is it just different types of wine yeast do different things?

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There's two methods-

1) remove approx. 5% of the must prior to fermentation and pump it full of campden tablets to kill the yeast. Freeze it while the remainder of the juice ferments. At filtering/bottling time recombine the unfermented juice with the finished wine, to taste. Homevintners and small wineries do it this way

2) Allow 100% of the juice to ferment, but babysit it 24/7 and be ready to crash cool and stabilise the whole batch when it reaches the FG/taste you want. Larger wineries do it this way.

Helps to have grapes that have a citrusy/fresh fruit flavour to start with, like Chardonnay, Reisling or Muscat.

Thought I'd throw this out there too...since I added the champagne yeast, there has been no visible fermentation; however, there is a slowly expanding layer at the top that I'm guessing is the result of more of the sugars fermenting, even though it doesn't look like anything else is happening. Is this normal for champagne yeast? Should I have aerated the wort again before adding this second dose of yeast? Its been in the secondary for five days now, and this is the only change I've seen. Should I just dump it and start over? Thanks.

Just thought I would give everyone who was interested an update on the beer. What started as a highly uncertain, overly sweet tasting brew turned into what I think is a pretty good beer. Fairly malty, hardly any hop characteristics (which someone said would happen), and a pretty decent AC. The beer was in the primary for about a week, the secondary for close to four, and bottled conditioned for a little over three before my first taste. Thanks to all those who gave their input on this one.

PS-I don't know what style I should consider this. With everything that's in it, it's heavy enough to be stout, but because I didn't mill my darker grains, it has a quite attractive amber color. Also, like I mentioned, its quite malty.