Typical champagne yeast activity...

Hi Everyone,

I have a huge barley wine (1.134 OG) that has hit about 63% attenuation with US-05 and is starting to poop out (it's slightly above 12% ABV right now). This is pretty much what I expected, and am now in the process of building a massive champagne yeast starter which will be pitched to the barley wine at high krausen.

Long story short, the champagne yeast seems to be sitting at the bottom of the starter (4 packs into 1200ml 1.040 wort). It is bubbling a bit, but I'm trying to observe it for high krausen so I may pitch it into the barley wine. Does champagne yeast top ferment... should I expect a big krausen? The starter is 1.040 all malt wort with nutrient and hit with a massive amount of pure O2.

I have used champagne yeast in a mead and apfelwein and did not observe the krausen you see from ale yeast. Mostly just saw lots of little bubbles moving from bottom to top, sometimes a tiny little bit of white foam, but nothing like the krausen on an ale yeast.

damdaman said:

I have used champagne yeast in a mead and apfelwein and did not observe the krausen you see from ale yeast. Mostly just saw lots of little bubbles moving from bottom to top, sometimes a tiny little bit of white foam, but nothing like the krausen on an ale yeast.

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I re-pitched a RIS with champagne yeast and got exactly what you just described. If I hadn't checked my SG I wouldn't have guessed it did anything.