Accidental Double IPA - Need help.

[Redlantern]

Well - this weekend, I had an IPA to brew that I was pretty excited about. Lots of hops, proven grain bill and everything in place.

The mash went well and I bypassed the gravity reading as it is a pain to stir, collect and chill the sample.

Got done with the boil and holy crap. my predicted gravity of 1.064 turned into 1.080. Went back and ran numbers - no mistake. manual calculation and beersmith jived.

I did not anticipate this and did not prepare a starter for my California V ale (WLP051) yeast. I hear it can be fussy.

In the event of a stall, what would be a good yeast to kick it back up? I might have pissed the yeast off and I want to finish at or about 1.015/

 

[saltymirv]

I would add more yeast ASAP, I wouldn't wait for it to stall. Too much yeast stress can cause off flavors.

If you have a vial of another yeast on hand, you could do a quick vitality starter and then pitch that. I think a single vial into 1.080 is going to cause some off flavors at least, it may not finish as low as you want either. Or if you have a packet of US-05 around you could rehydrate that and pitch it.

 

[BeerEngineer15]

Saltymirv is right about pitching more yeast ASAP. The other thing that you can do is add some San Diego Super Yeast, it has a higher alcohol tolerance and may help you get the attenuation down a little bit more than just WLP051

 

[Redlantern]

Thanks to both of you. I seemed to have a decent Krausen and hydrated and pitched my emergency stash of US-05.

I had a slight sulfur smell - but that is expected from WLP051. Fermentation was still going OK after two days when I did it, so I should be OK.

Also lowered the ambient to 64 to keep the 05 from going crazy with fusels. WIll favor 05 over the 051 right now, but I an guessing the 051 was more than half way done anyway.

 

[bluebarnaclebrewing]

Not sure what your hop schedule is like but this happened to me before and I needed to add more dry hops as it ended up too boozy. Few ounces of hops in the keg and it was great!

 

[Redlantern]

At this point, I am still perkin' once about every two minutes. Gravity is down to 1.013 - so about 8.7% ABV.

Took a sip out of the port and it has a slight alcohol taste, but not hot - just ever so slightly boozy. Not too bad.

Probably will throw in a few more hops pet suggestion.

 

[Aristotelian]

What'd done is done but next time I would top off with some more water at the end of the boil rather than mess with different yeast strains. If you end up with extra wort keep it to use for your next starter or an experimental batch.

Would wine yeast help finish this one off if it stalls out?

 

[Redlantern]

Stalling s not a concern now - I am in good gravity range and will crash probably Monday by the looks of thing.

I will definitely take my pre-boil gravity next time. That is where my signal to add water would be if necessary.

I want to figure out how to keep getting the higher yield though. Nice getting 80%+ efficiency.

 

[Wldthang87]

Why didn't you just dilute so your SG ended up being 1.064? Just for my own curiosity

 

[Redlantern]

Why didn't you just dilute so your SG ended up being 1.064? Just for my own curiosity

Because I can be a complete idiot now and then

 

[zakkweichbrodt]

man i've had nothing but finishing issues with cali V

 

[NothingRhymesWithCurtiss]

At this point, I am still perkin' once about every two minutes. Gravity is down to 1.013 - so about 8.7% ABV.

Took a sip out of the port and it has a slight alcohol taste, but not hot - just ever so slightly boozy. Not too bad.

Probably will throw in a few more hops pet suggestion.

Haha. I made an accidental DIPA about 2 months ago, and had a boozy taste to it as well. I let the bottles condition an extra 4 weeks, then tossed them in the fridge for a week.

The boozy taste was mostly gone, and luckily, the hop flavor/aroma was still there.