question about champagne yeast

[New-B-Brewer]

last winter I brewed a belgian triple that came in about 12%abv and never really carbonated. It had a little tingle on the tongue but that was it. I used wyeast 3787. I'm guessing the yeast just couldn't handle the strong abv. I'd like to brew it again but I'm thinking about using champagne yeast at bottling time.
What are the pros and cons?

 

[Inodoro_Pereyra]

I used to make fruit wines with pasteur champagne yeast. For what I read, it tolerates 18% ABV easily, however, I've never went over 15% ABV.
As I remember, the yeast works better between 70-75*F. Over that temperature, it really speeds up fermentation, to the point that I had a batch of strawberry wine ready for the secondary in 2 days, after fermenting at 80*+. I don't know how it works at lower temps (not too many opportunities to go under 70*F here in Miami...).
It makes very little foam. The best you can ask for is a string of bubbles along the edge of the liquid.
The yeast will ferment to dryness. No percentage attenuation here: as long as there's fermentable sugar present, and the ABV is under toxic levels, it'll keep working.
It flocculates well. At bottling time, wine made with it is crystal clear.

HTH...

 

[theonetrueruss]

I'm going to be bottling a Belgian strong this weekend that is also at 12%. I was planning to use a vial of WLP550 at bottling time to insure I had enough viable yeast to carbonate.

Did you add any yeast at bottling time for your non carbonated triple? I'd like to make sure I am going to get the carbonation levels I expect.

 

[wyzazz]

Dry Champagne or Wine yeast added at bottling will carb your beer just fine. It carbs faster because it's alcohol tolerant and has simple sugars to eat. I've made it a standard practice for my high gravity beers to pitch 1/4 of a packet of Red Star Montrachet if I'm bottling. It's cheap, pretty alcohol tolerant & I usually have it on hand for Apfelwein.

There is no need to worry about it chewing through sugars that your beer yeast couldn't get to because contrary to popular belief, Wine/Champagne yeast isn't very good at eating maltose.

 

[DannPM]

last winter I brewed a belgian triple that came in about 12%abv and never really carbonated. It had a little tingle on the tongue but that was it. I used wyeast 3787. I'm guessing the yeast just couldn't handle the strong abv. I'd like to brew it again but I'm thinking about using champagne yeast at bottling time.
What are the pros and cons?

This should work well. Many Belgian breweries use champagne yeast at bottling especially if they are filtering. Use a simple sugar, table sugar works well, so that the champagne yeast can easily consume it. Champagne yeast has a hard time fermenting maltose so no carbing with DME like some folks do.