Dry out my beer with Montrachet wine yeast

This is the continuation of a nightmare brew documented here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=57625

My Three Pistoles clone now seems stuck. OG was 1.085. Looks pretty dead at 1.047. Not good. Temp was controlled at 72 deg.

I just racked to the secondary and stirred up a lot of yeast to carry over. I am also cranking up the temp to the high 70s to see if I can kick start it.

As part of a series of screw ups, I didn't get this beer aerated as well as I usually do because I dropped my aerator in the carboy. I did use a 3 litre starter that looked really healthy. But maybe the under-aeration didn't help.

I am wondering if I can use some Montrachet dry wine yeast to finish this beer? I have some of this and some Saf-05. I have heard of people using champagne yeast. Do they just dump the wine yeast? I know JZ recommends using beer yeast at high krausen to finish a beer.

Any suggetions welcome.

I would not use the champagne yeast - it will seriously dry out your beer, way more then you likely want. I would go with the high krausen method myself.

GT

Was the a AG or Extract? Recipe?

You could try a dry beer yeast, rehydrate and add to carboy.

You could aslo go with the champagne yeast. How dry that will take it depends largely on the % of unfermetables (crystal malts, high mash temp etc).

AG recipe. Mashed at 149.

I said screw it and pitched the Montrachet when it was starting to show action for a few hours in the starter. I brought the beer up to 86 degrees for a couple hours to give it a kick, and I'll let it finish around 74.

We'll see what happens...

I pulled a stuck tripel down from 1.044 to 1.006 with a single pitch of WLP099 at high kraeusen. It took about 3 days.

I pitched after the fight last night, about 1:30 am. Not much activity yet, but I'm crossing my fingers.

Damn X that was quite an ordeal! Trois Pistoles is currently my favorite beer and if you could post the recipe that would be outstanding. To make a close replica would be homebrewing Nirvana. I hope in the end your brew is excellent, and I suspect that with time it will be.

12 lb Pilsener (adjust for your eff. to get O.G. 1.085)
9 oz Crystal 60
9 oz Cara-Munich II (I'm sure I or III would be fine)
4 oz Biscuit
2 oz Chocolate
1 lb cane sugar
1 lb Dark Candi Sugar - I made this myself
Stryrian Goldings at 25-30 IBU for 90 min
.5 oz Stryrian Goldings for 15 min
1/8 tsp ground anisefor 15 min
1/4 oz bitter orange peel for 15 min
1/8 tsp ground Anise for 2 min
.25 oz Saaz for 2 min (I didn't use this additon this time - this beer is going to age 6 months at least)

Big starter of 3864. I don't know what to make of this yeast. FIrst batch took a looooooong time to finish. This one seemed to stall. Maybe keep temp ramping up to high 70's.

Thank you so much X you truly made my day. I see you said "first batch". Have you made it before? Results? Ever date Robin Quivers?

Yeah, this is my second batch. I made the first at the end of November. I'll probably let it go until May at least before tapping it. I missed the O.G. low by .010, but it tasted ok going into the keg.

Probobly depends on if the yeast was stuck because of complex sugars, or if the yeast was not healthy, it would have stuck when it hit 5%ABV. If its just the complex-sugars, then adding a tsp of amylase can drop it down another .010.

I've used both Montrachet and Champagne to finish out some high gravity beers, and they all turned out well. But in those cases, there is already tons of flavor to hide any odd winey flavors that might have come from those yeasts.

nick

good to hear! Two questions as I want to get this perfect: I read back through the two involved posts, and couldn't figure if the recipe is AG or extract. I assumed AG but it reads like an extract. Second, i assume both anise additions are 1/8tsp, but the first has no unit. Thanks for the patience I love this beer big time

You are right. Both additions of anise are tsp. I bought whole star anise and ground them up in my mortar. One star is more than enough IIRC. And the recipe is AG.

A quickie for HP. What procedure did you use for pitching the wine yeast? I just used a small starter to get it used to fermenting, then pitched it.

mr x said:

A quickie for HP. What procedure did you use for pitching the wine yeast? I just used a small starter to get it used to fermenting, then pitched it.

Click to expand...

Dry yeast. I always keep a packet of dry ale, and dry champagne yeast in the fridge for emergencies.

Most here will say "Dont repitch champagne yeast. You should have started with WLP099." But that doesnt do any good for those of us who don't have WLP099 at the LHBS.