The Barleywine Conundrum

Hi Forum-users!

So. I started a barleywine in honour of almost completing my doctorate. After mashing and a long ass-boil, I got the OG to 1.150 and started it off with an ale yeast and a red wine yeast mixed with some yeast nutrient, figuring that the ale yeast would break down the long malt sugars, and the wine yeast would give it some oomph once the ale yeast had been subdued by the alcohol.

Naive, right? So it got to a gravity of c. 1.100 and both yeasts conked out. I added half a bag of turbo distillers yeast, thinking that they had both been conked out. In the time since, I have read that red wine yeast is referred to as a 'killer' yeast, meaning that the yeasty relationship at the start was possibly less buddy comedy and more pycho thriller. Further, unless I've read wrong, it means that the wine yeast has also killed the distillers yeast before it could do any good.

This morning, I gave the bin a good shake around, whisked the top and added a bottle of Puck Goat, my Lambic Dark Ale, hoping that the Brett and other bugs would be resistant to the wine yeasts' poison. I somehow doubt that anyone would be willing to drink a beer which is 5% ABV, flat, and sweet as treacle. Bearing in mind that Convertase seems to be unobtainable in the UK, is there anything I can do, or do I have 2 gallons of expensive BBQ marinade?

how long was the fermentation? I guess it may take months to ferment. Anyway, you can reach a FG like 1040, as no yeast ferment more than 14% alcool

It's been sitting for 2 months, but it hasn't moved for > 3 weeks.

Just to clarify, you've had no change from the time you added the turbo yeast? Also what kind of red wine yeast did you use?

I would try pitching a healthy dose of WLP099 Super High Gravity Ale Yeast. It is working on my barleywine that got stuck.

thenugsmoustache said:

I would try pitching a healthy dose of WLP099 Super High Gravity Ale Yeast. It is working on my barleywine that got stuck.

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Another vote for White Labs Super High Gravity Yeast. It works wonders with Barleywines.

If the wine yeast is going to slaughter competitors, seems like the first step is to kill the wine yeast before sending in the 099...

Cheers!

You could cold crash, gelatin, then pitch a large starter of 099. I bet it will take off.

Yeah. Save your wine yeast for wine (maybe use some champagne yeast for bottle conditioning big beers). Not sure what you're going to do with your barleywine. You'd need to eliminate the wine yeast if you were going to add more brewer's yeast (which you should add at high krausen). Problem with eliminating the wine yeast is that you don't have a lot of options. K-meta/campden tablets won't kill the wine yeast, only stun it, and when it comes back around you'll have the same problem (maybe cold crash, rack off of the yeast cake into a new vessel, add the campden there, and then add your active brewer's yeast? That could possibly work). You wouldn't want to pasteurize, I don't think, although I don't know much about it. But it seems like an easy way to introduce oxidative staling... Sorry, I don't have too many suggestions. You've worked yourself into a corner with this one, and I'll be interested to see if you can get out of it. Next time, DON'T ADD WINE YEAST! (Doesn't matter that it's a "barleywine", it's still beer.)

Personally, I would pasteurize it to kill all current biologicals, and then slowly step-feed the current batch INTO a new carboy that begins with a large (4L?) starter of your chosen high gravity beer yeast (like 099). Add more each day until it is all in the new fermenter with the new starter. Oxygenate at each step. You can look up step-feeding for more info, but that isn't the correct term. This will be more like building up a 5 gallon starter without decanting.

andrewmaixner said:

Oxygenate at each step.

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I learned the hard way that high gravity beers require a little more oxygen. I usually wait 24hrs after pitching, then aerate a second time. I like using WLP 070 Bourbon yeast for my barleywines, supposed to be good up to 18-20%abv, but may add a little E1118 if I think I need a little extra help bottle conditioning. I usually add it a day or two before bottling.

Another tip I've learned, again the hard way, is that if you are using an ale yeast for a preferred flavor, pitch it first. After the ale yeast slows down, then pitch your high gravity yeast. I've always used a neutral yeast for the latter, too chicken to try to find two yeasts that compliment each other that well.

Good luck salvaging the current batch.

I agree with first figuring out what compounds produced by the red wine yeast inhibit the work of the brewer's yeast and then looking for a way to neutralize them. It seems as if pitching any ale yeasts may be futile.

I know that you tossed in a bottle of your funky brew, but perhaps it would require more funky cells? How about champagne or other types of yeast? Have you thought of brewing a super dry, alcoholic beer and blending the two? These are all naive but hopefully constructive suggestions.

Oh, and congratulations on your doctorate! A barleywine might be one of the better ways to commemorate your achievement!

Hello everyone.

Thank you very much for your kind words and suggestions. The next time I attempt a Barleywine, I will surely use the SUper High Ale yeast first, and save the wine yeast for mead, wine and cider. It seems from your comments that I realistically have 3 main options:

1) Take the beer off the yeast, boil to pasteurise and then repitch with strong ale yeast (including oxygenation advice), maybe even make a tiny batch of barleywine to account for the lost alcomohols. [This may not kill, denature or remove the killer red-wine proteins]
2) Add a bigger starter of wine yeasts and hope this ferments as much of the available sugar as possible [although it may not ferment maltose or maltotriose, I'm hoping that much of the sugar in the batch is monosaccharides]
3)Try and find a wine yeast which can ferment maltose and maltoriose

I'll keep the community posted on which I try and what happens hereafter.

Cauchy, Thanks in advance. I brewed this as an ale to drink alongside my graduation in a number of months. Nemesis apparently heard my hubris and she gave me two mighty retributory stiletto kicks: both ale and thesis have stalled of late :S

didinho said:

how long was the fermentation? I guess it may take months to ferment. Anyway, you can reach a FG like 1040, as no yeast ferment more than 14% alcool

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????

WLP099 ferments up to 25%, champagne yeast is regularly quoted as around 16-17% max, and I've seen reports of Belgians and even US-05 being pushed above 14%. Also, the various strains used to ferment the stuff to be distilled into whiskeys.

OP, fining, cold-crashing, and then doing something like what I did with the starter here might be worth a shot.

Which wine strain did you use? Assuming you used a killer strain, it produced proteins that lysed your ale strain. Proteins are hard to remove, and there is not any good data on how long killer factors hang around. Unless you can source a killer neutral ale strain (they exist, but you have to screen them yourself), Brett is your friend. Brett C was originally isolated from stock ales, this could be a good application.

I'll be the one to ask... are you measuring current gravity with a hydrometer or refractometer?

Hey Fellows. NOIguanaforZS, unfortunately I've very limited refrigeration space, so that's not practical for me at the moment although I've no doubt it's an excellent way to solve the problem.

AK7007: I used Gervin Purple Label Wine yeast. Brett would seem like it could have good potential, I know it can ferment maltose, but I've never heard of it being used in winemaking. Given the strength of the wort, I imagine I might need to make a starter culture from a live sample. Dammit, jusrt after i swore off the funky stuff, I'm dragged back in!

Schematix, I'm using a glass hydrometer, adjusted for temperature using the Brewers' Friend algorithm.

LordofMisrule said:

Hey Fellows. NOIguanaforZS, unfortunately I've very limited refrigeration space, so that's not practical for me at the moment although I've no doubt it's an excellent way to solve the problem.

AK7007: I used Gervin Purple Label Wine yeast. Brett would seem like it could have good potential, I know it can ferment maltose, but I've never heard of it being used in winemaking. Given the strength of the wort, I imagine I might need to make a starter culture from a live sample. Dammit, jusrt after i swore off the funky stuff, I'm dragged back in!

Schematix, I'm using a glass hydrometer, adjusted for temperature using the Brewers' Friend algorithm.

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Ummm...I think this may have been the root of the problem right here. Barleywine is beer, not wine, despite the name. You should be making it like beer. Is this why you chose wine yeast? Not that it makes a difference to your batch now, I suppose...

Hi JordanKnudson. I had hoped to take advantage of wine yeast's much higher ABV resistance and accentuate the vinuous characteristic of the finished beverage. I did know barleywine was an ale-style, but it was more in the spirit of experimentation that I used the wine yeast, figuring that what the wine yeast didn't finish, the distiller's yeast would, ignorant of the poisonous effect.

It's not unheard of to use wine yeast or distillers yeast in a beer. Thankfully, LordofMisrule, you already know this and aren't locked in a box. Here is an interesting article that combines wine and traditional ale yeasts for flavor and alcohol tolerance reasons.
https://byo.com/stories/issue/item/3220-collaborative-fermentations-advanced-brewing
If your barley wine gravity readings continue to be stuck you may want to increase the temperature to get fermentation going again. The wine yeast and the turbo yeast tend to like warmer temperatures. I'm hoping you get your beer to the point where you can at least say you did it and report on how it came out or what didn't work.
Congrats on completing your PhD!

LordofMisrule said:

Hi JordanKnudson. I had hoped to take advantage of wine yeast's much higher ABV resistance and accentuate the vinuous characteristic of the finished beverage.

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For future reference, WLP099 can ferment up to 25% and is alleged to have a vinous character at higher gravities. I can't comment because my 17-odd% barleywine with it still...isn't...done...fermenting the last sugar addition. o.o

Hi Guys

Thanks for all of your advice on this. I tried to get the Brett Trois to ferment the Wort, but I suspect that some combination of the high alcohol/high sugar wort/ Poisonous Wine Yeast may have either killed it or stunned it. Lesson learned!