My Wee Heavy Farted on the Ceiling

On Monday night I brewed a 6 gallon batch of Scottish Wee Heavy and had an amazingly good session that ended up with a final gravity of 1.098 and I was totally stoked when I pitched the Edinburgh yeast. It started activity at around 12 hours and by 24 hours (last night) it blew its stack and kicked off a bunch of foam through the tube into the bucket no worries.

So this morning the foam had mostly settled down so I took out the tube and put in an air lock - it was a little vigorous but no major issues when I took off for work an hour or so later.

My fermentation chamber is basically my walk in shower in our bathroom of the main floor of the house - the shower never gets used and it stays a pretty even 65-70 degrees.

So at lunch my wife calls and says "hey your beer is making a mess and going crazy and it's basically coming up though the air lock and gettin on the outside of the stopper and down the side, blah, blah, blah . . . "

So then I walk her through getting a bucket with water and sanitizer etc. and a blow off tube and tell her how to remove the stopper and get the tube in and sanitize the whole thing.

I the middle of pulling out the airlock she screams and yells "oh my God!" and describes the scene of mayhem and distruction as the airlock comes shooting out followed by foam and trub soiling her precious tile and hitting the ceiling. Finally after calming her down, I am able to determine that the volume (my main concern) is still only down less than an inch from the the original trub line ("phew") and then I go back to enjoying my delicious lunch that she prepared for me.

 

That is a good picture but this thread is useless without pictures.

 

The way she initially described it, I thought the world had ended.

 

Pics!

And the word you were looking for is "sharted"

 

maybe the beer got overly excited while she was playing with it...

 

Meh, you're not really a brewer until you've used a mop on the ceiling.

 

Or say F it and call it your "beer art gallery"

 

It actually did barf on the floor quite a bit. I am down to the 5 gallon mark and I started with six, so I'm looking at about 4.25 to 4.75 gallons going into the keg. Oh well, an expensive batch I guess - but it should roll in at around 9.5 to 10% alcohol so I am still pretty stoked about it.

I just bought a pound of Hallertau hops for about $12 and I should get a pretty nice batch of Edinburgh yeast out of this, so the next batch will be A LOT cheaper!

 

Be careful about washing/reusing yeast that has just fermented such a big batch. 1.098 is pretty dang burly for reusing.....

 

I am really interested in hearing your theory on this because I am really trying to drive my costs down. I have been able to wash different types of yeast successfully and have now driven down my hops cost considerably.

In the past I have washed California Ale Yeast after some pretty burly double IPA's with great success but those are usually in the 1.072 - 1.078 range.

What are the risks of washing the Edinburgh after a .098?

I hate the thought of paying seven bucks per vial every time I brew this beer (assuming I like it) but that being said, I have been on a hot streak for quite a while, and I certainly don't want that to come to an end due to me doing something stupid.

On another note, I cleaned up the bathroom last night and killed the fruit flies that had gathered for the feast. It looks like I will end up with about 4 gallons of Wee Heavy. The stuff that I wiped up smelled like it had alot of alcohol in it - in a good way.

 

I apologize for not speaking on personal experience (perhaps someone can chime in here). I have read in numerous places that if you want to wash/reuse yeast, that it should be from low to moderate gravity brews, usually at or under 1.06 and I haven't risked it.
This, I have read, is due to the stress level the yeast has to deal with in such a high gravity environment and the subsequent mutation and non-viability that can ensue.

You could, however, brew a batch of moderate edinburgh-based brew and wash that yeast. Then, depending on how many jars you make, you could brew your wee heavy multiple times before having to pony up for the new yeast again...

 

A grand idea - but I wouldn't know what else to brew with the Edinburgh yeast - this being my first forray into Edinburgh territory.

I may still try washing it and just double down on next batch, or maybe do a starter - unless someone thinks I would be doing some bad kind of Darwinian science by doing so . . .

 

You can achieve a similar effect as brewing a beer and washing the yeast by just making a bunch of starters.

Take a little bit of the yeast and put it in two or four flasks, and step up the size until you have a sufficient starter. I would start low though, around 250-500ml and a quarter cup of DME.

Mr Malty Pitching Rate Calculator
Go there to calculate how much you should end up with.

In this way you can do what Couevas said, without making a weak version of anything.

 

If you're going to pitch on a cake, that certainly makes sense, but if you're washing a yeast, and storing it in a yeast bank, and then making starters, its probably not something you're going to have to worry about.

 

I ran the calculator and it said it needs 4.1 vials without starter or 2 vials with starter of 3.86 liters.

This is interesting because with only one vial I had a good amount of activity within 12 hours, and within 18 hours that beer was literally blowing its stack, so I wonder how accurate that 4.1 vial estimate is. But more importantly I wonder how I would step up the next generation.

Couldn't I just use more harvested/washed yeast than I normally would (say 2 or 3 jars, instead of one) or is it important to let it get to a higher number of cells in a starter or weaker beer?

 

I am no expert, but I think there is more to pitching a good amount of yeast than just lag time, there are also off flavors possibly produced by having fewer yeast create the alcohol.

In any case, you are probably fine continuing doing what you are doing, but if you would like to err on the side of caution, you can breed as many yeast as you want in a light alcohol, yeast friendly environment from just 1 vial, just make sure you end up with a fair amount of yeast in each pitch. Mr. Malty can help you find how much you need.

 

That's kind of what I was thinking, just use a couple jars of washed yeast and do a light starter, pouring off the light beer.

It's a cool calculator nevertheless.

 

Its not usually recommended to reuse yeast that has fermented a beer that high of gravity. Fermenting a beer that high puts a lot of stress on the yeast. It can cause them to produce off flavors in future batches. I like to use Edinburgh also for my Wee heavy. I usually brew a Scottish 60/- first then reuse that for my Wee heavy.