1.220 OG RIS

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Comfort_Zone said:
To be fair, I don't find the WLP099 instructions to be that helpful. The tips and tricks from the Black Tuesday notes seem to apply to most yeast. If doing high abv I prefer to use Dry Belgian or WY3787, maybe 3711. WLP099 is way too finicky. I've gotten it past 20% but it was way more effort than the aforementioned yeasts.
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I plan on ordering some Dry Belgian early next week when I'll have the best chance of getting it refrigerated quickly. Should have a decent pitch of that ready by next weekend. That will also give me some time to step up the 099 starter one more time and pitch it.

With your big beers, how are your apparent attenuation percentages? Were you able to get the FGs sufficiently low?

Thanks to everyone who have provided knowledge and suggestions so far. :mug:
 
Jwin said:
Thermal load. It's a b**ch.
Before you dump it, try some brett or goodbelly. Never know...
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I've been able to keep the second batch in the mid 60s to low 70s. It's a pretty big swing which isn't ideal, but it's better than the mid 50s. Controlling temp on less than 5.5 gallons is sort of difficult with my setup.

I'll look into the brett and see if there's anything I can make work with the ingredients used. Good thing both batches are in glass... Hoping Dry Belgian will kick start the second batch.
 
That's crazy that the Super Yeast is being so difficult. What ABV would you expect this second batch is sitting at?

If it were my beer I think I would give it a few weeks in the mid 60s unpurturbed to work through the sugar before throwing in the towel. I would bet this is a case of stressed yeast rather than too much unfermentable sugar.
 
AMessenger said:
That's crazy that the Super Yeast is being so difficult. What ABV would you expect this second batch is sitting at?

If it were my beer I think I would give it a few weeks in the mid 60s unpurturbed to work through the sugar before throwing in the towel. I would bet this is a case of stressed yeast rather than too much unfermentable sugar.
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Only sitting at around 8% right now. There's something else going on because I see krausen shortly after each addition.

There may have been too many simple sugars added to the wort to begin with, so I may have some lazy yeast. I'll repitch 099 as soon as I can step the starter up once more, cold crash, and decant.
 
Easycreeper said:
I plan on ordering some Dry Belgian early next week when I'll have the best chance of getting it refrigerated quickly. Should have a decent pitch of that ready by next weekend. That will also give me some time to step up the 099 starter one more time and pitch it.

With your big beers, how are your apparent attenuation percentages? Were you able to get the FGs sufficiently low?

Thanks to everyone who have provided knowledge and suggestions so far. :mug:
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I mash all of mine very low for as long as I can and I usually get at least 85% attenuation with the right yeast.

Edit: if anything I usually overshoot my target final gravity by starting with as fermentable of a wort as possible. If I want a higher finishing gravity I'll go fairly heavy on the specialty malts or use a yeast with a lower alcohol tolerance and push it to its limit. For a higher finishing gravity Chico is my goto strain.
 
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Jwin said:
A vitality starter might be food as well. Get the little buggers active before they get too drunk
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That was part of the plan for the first round, but got put to the wayside when things didn't pan out. I'll build up the next step to about 1.100 and pitch at high krausen.
 
Haven’t updated in a while, so here goes:

TL;DR: Both batches still fermenting. Clinging desperately to hope that one or both will finish out still…

I’m fully vested with the second batch with 5.5 gallons of wort into the fermenter. That brings the OG for this batch up to 1.149 and some change that doesn’t bear accounting. It has been liberally dosed with Beano and another over the counter enzyme supplement called Pancreatin that contains amylase, lipase, and protease. It’s doubtful the latter is attributing anything since amylase is the only applicable enzyme in the mix…

Anyway, the second batch is down to 1.060 so far and continues to drop 2-3 points per day fairly reliably according to the Tilt reading. There’s still activity on the surface of the wort, indicated by many tiny bubbles (there’s a song about that, but it wasn’t about an imperial stout…). No krausen, but there looks to be quite a bit of yeast still active and in suspension because the wort still has a milk chocolate color instead of the pitch black the beer will eventually be.

Made another addition to the first batch, bringing current OG up to 1.167 with 2.25 gallons into the carboy. I have no way to check current SG outside of taking a hydrometer sample until the Tilt gets pulled from the other batch. However, the sample I took a couple of weeks ago showed SG to be around 1.070, down from the then OG of 1.151.

Both batches have a small pitch of TYB Dry Belgian as well for insurance.

I’m ready to have my ferm chamber and carboys back…
 
AMessenger said:
Nice! Happy to hear things are moving.

What was your desired FG on these?
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I'd love to see 1.030, but I'm pretty sure that's not in the cards. Right now, I'd settle for 1.040. May take some doing to get to the latter anyway. Just gonna ride it out and see what happens!
 
Easycreeper said:
Been giving each a good swirl morning and evening by rocking the carboys. Maybe that'll keep the yeast happy enough to finish the job...
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Yes, I think re-suspending the yeast is critical to maximizing yeast contact with wort and de-gassing CO2. I swirled my 18.5% (1.150 OG) imperial stout at least 2x a day until terminal gravity was hit in about 3-4 weeks. Swirling also helped dissolve the candi syrup and caramelized honey that I simply poured into the fermenter. Plus it's a good core workout .
 
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Weekly update for those interested:

The second batch continues to ferment. Right now it's down to 1.046 from 1.149. Still seeing pinprick bubbles all over the surface and it's still muddy looking, so there's yeast still in suspension. Hoping it'll keep going all the way to 1.030.

The first batch is still going as well. Each swirl of the carboy releases a huge amount of CO2. Enough so that you don't want to have your face over the airlock... It's muddy like the other with the same bubbles all over the surface. No clue what the current gravity is though. Maybe I'll dip a sample when it slows down a bit. Either that or I'll fish out the Tilt from the other batch and drop it in.
 
My emergency pitch of THB dry belgian had microbubbles on surface of beer for 1 month before stopping. I got my 1.135OG down to 1.033-4 ish... I even took a risk and am bottle conditioning the beer. It is 13.4% before approximately 16oz of bourbon addition. TYB said 16% tolerance so here is to hoping she carbs!

I this thread is definitely fun to watch.
 
Weekly update:

Still no clue what the first batch is down to, but the second batch has come on down to 1.036 as of this morning and continues to drop. It's a little slower now that I've moved it to a cooler room (~70F) from the ferm chamber that was holding in the mid to upper 70s, but at least it's still going. Maybe it'll get down into the upper 1.020s by next week...

Took a hydrometer sample a couple of days ago to see how accurate the Tilt was measuring to actual SG and it's awfully close. Maybe reading a point low as compared to a hydrometer. The Dry Belgian is definitely doing some work in there since it's got a bit more Belgian character than I want. Hoping some of that will mellow out once it gets finished fermenting.

I'd like to move it off of the yeast cake in less than two weeks to avoid autolysis if possible.

Just to show how slow these beers are going, I brewed a DIPA at 1.098 last weekend and used WLP001. In 4.5 days, SG was down to 1.013. It's too bad 001 won't go as far as 099 and Dry Belgian. I love that yeast.
 
The Belgian character will fade pretty quickly. Even at only a few weeks in I couldn't taste any Belgian character in my last big stout.
 
1.032 for batch 2. Slowing waaay down, but still going. That puts this batch at 15.4% and still going. Can't wait to retrieve the Tilt and see where batch 1 is sitting .

On a side note, the DIPA finished at 1.011. That's 88% apparent attenuation! WLP001 is impressive to say the least.
 
Friday update.

Waffling between 1.030 and 1.029 for about 36 hours now. More 1.029s at this point. I think batch 2 is almost done! Waiting on the beer to start "clearing."
 
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Taking a few peeks at 1.027 which is where I'm expecting it to finish up. Going to give it a couple more weeks on the yeast cake to fully clean up and then transfer to secondary with dark oak cubes, bourbon, and maybe coffee. Ill taste it and make up my mind on the coffee once in secondary.

Making another addition to batch 1 today which should bring OG up to 1.187 if I recall correctly. Still no clue where SG is at the moment, but it's still active after all this time.
 
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AMessenger said:
Nice!

Is there much Belgain yeast charcter left?
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Not sure just yet. I'll have to see when I transfer to secondary. If there is, hopefully it'll be complimentary, especially if it has some dark fruit character like I'm expecting.
 
Transferred batch 2 to secondary this morning and now have a more accurate FG. Made it down to 1.031, 4 points higher than what the Tilt was reading. I'll blame that on myself since I didn't bother calibrating the thing when all of this started. That puts me around 15.5% with another ~0.45% coming later on with the addition of 8oz of 100 proof bourbon and oak cubes. The Belgian yeast character is still present, but much muted. What's there is not unpleasant and the hydrometer sample tastes pretty good overall. Should improve with aging and carb.

The Tilt is in batch 1 now and reading around 1.092. Higher than I was hoping, but it has dropped a point already from this morning. Hopefully it'll keep up the trend and get somewhere near drinkable...
 
Comfort_Zone said:
Any updates?
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Basically dead in the water. I tried making up a simple syrup that had the same OG as the wort to see if the simple sugars would ferment and thin it out, but it's not really cooperating. Pitched another starter of 099 which didn't help and followed that up with champagne yeast which was my last option. It doesn't play well with other yeasts.

Still seeing a gravity drop of a point every couple of days, but I don't think it's going to be anywhere near drinkable when it finally quits. Plus, it's been on the original cake for several months now, so I'm sure there's some autolysis going on. No big deal. Lesson learned.

BTW, thanks to you and the others for turning me on to TYB Dry Belgian. I just fermented a tripel with an OG of 1.116 down to 0.997. That's 15.6% and it tastes good! Amazing yeast. Was going to follow it up with a pitch of Brett, but there's nothing left to ferment...
 
After having a lot of failed batches with WLP099 I decided to try TYB Dry Belgian as there were rumors that it was an isolate of The Bruery's house strain. Having used some dregs from a bottle of Mischief I can certainly believe it as that's the only strain I know of that attenuates that much AND smells like green jolly ranchers during fermentation. Taking a beer from 1.116 to 0.997 doesn't surprise me one bit with that yeast.
 
TYB dry Belgian is a diastatic strain
Need to be careful not to package too early or cross contaminate with it.
Basically, treat it like Brett.
Easycreaper:
In turn, it should keep munching away for a bit. I wouldn't stess about autolysis much since of your yeast is apparently dead anyway.
If you have a carbonator cap you could always carb a sample up and see how it tastes.
You're probably around a similar gravity as Dark Lord by now. Maybe lower.
 
Jwin said:
TYB dry Belgian is a diastatic strain
Need to be careful not to package too early or cross contaminate with it.
Basically, treat it like Brett.
Easycreaper:
In turn, it should keep munching away for a bit. I wouldn't stess about autolysis much since of your yeast is apparently dead anyway.
If you have a carbonator cap you could always carb a sample up and see how it tastes.
You're probably around a similar gravity as Dark Lord by now. Maybe lower.
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Definitely going to give the tripel a little while to finish up. Not sure if I'll secondary or just leave it in primary for a few weeks. It does have a pitch of Brett in it, but I think it doesn't have much left to munch on, plus the beer is past its alcohol tolerance.

RE the RIS, I may hit it with potassium metabisulfate, transfer off of the yeast cake, and pitch another round of champagne yeast. I saw some some white spots on top at one point, so there may be something else growing in there that's killing my yeast. There should be enough simple sugars in there to show an appreciable drop in gravity given a healthy pitch of yeast.

There again, even if the sugar ferments out, I don't think I'll ever hit a FG that I would consider drinkable. Certainly not 5 gallons worth... Would probably be better off dumping and coming up with a better game plan for next time. Maybe I'll try again in a couple of months.
 
Final update on batch 1. Decided to dump this morning since it stalled solidly at 1.099 from an OG of 1.190. Never made it to the final additions to get OG over 1.200. No point, really. Ill use the remaining wort as a sort of candi syrup for future batches, limiting the amount used because it's already hopped and has fermentability issues.

Some lessons learned here:

1.) Don't boil for an excessive amount of time. The second batch was boiled for a quarter of the duration of the first and attenuated nicely. Maillard reactions and whatever else hindered fermentation of the first.

2.) WLP099 is a pain to deal with. I haven't given up on it completely, but my skill to make it go where it purportedly can is lacking.

3.) TYB Dry Belgian is awesome. It may not produce flavors consistent with RIS guidelines, but it can help a stuck fermentation.

4.) I think it may be better to approach huge beers with the same method I used with the Tripel I just brewed: Target a post boil volume of around 4.5 gallons and make simple sugar additions a little along as fermentation progresses, dissolving each addition in a measured volume of water. Target a final volume in the fermentor of around 5.5 gallons, never exceeding a gravity of 1.100 at any given time.

5.) Mash REALLY low. I'm talking about 148F or less as long as conversion takes place. The Tripel was mashed at 148 and fell to 146 over an hour. The last I checked, it was sitting at 0.997 which can also be attributed to the sugar additions.

I'll use what I've learned here in the near future (within the next couple of months), so I'll update here with any success. I've had enough of reporting my failures, so assume prolonged silence is proof of yet another disappointment.
 
Don't give up hope. Those big beers are pretty tough the first few times. I ended up making chocolate syrup the first couple times.

Mashing low and long is your friend.

Do a 2 hour boil at the very most. I've done longer boils without too many attenuation issues, but it's a diminishing returns at a certain point.

WLP099 is a royal pain. It seems to be rather picky about sugar additions or maybe osmotic pressure? I've gotten it close to 25% but it was far more work than it's worth.

TYB Dry Belgian, while not as alcohol tolerant as WLP099, is a far more reliable yeast and certainly no slouch at producing a high abv product.

Don't lose hope, just take a step back and learn from these "failures". Many of us have been there before.
 
For those who were wondering how the successful batch turned out, here it is:

41284712854_90a3378586_c.jpg


This is the best RIS I've ever brewed. Very, very happy with this one. Turns out it's a little better than 16% because my volume measurements were a little off.

It's warming and slightly tongue numbing and has flavors of dark fruit, dark chocolate, vanilla, and caramel. If memory serves me correctly, its similar in flavor to Brooklyn's Black Chocolate Stout, but with more fruit.
 

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