First IPA, OG is WAY high - yeast viability?

[Stephonovich]

First off, let me say that I have utilized the search function, but I couldn't find a whole lot about yeast dying off due to high ABV. Whitelab's website had one fellow who had successfully used the strain (WLP001) at a fairly high OG, but he also double-pitched.

So, this is my 5th brew; all others minus one have been successful. I've brewed mostly dark beers previously, with OGs roughly in the 1.080 range. Decided with the warmer months approaching, to brew an IPA.

I ended up going with AHS New Zealand Double IPA as mini-mash, with a claimed OG of 1.082, and ABV of 8.3%. I ordered the 1% Alcohol Boost, which I've used before with great success.

I'd made a 1L DME starter (a little lower than Mr. Malty recommended, but eh - I've never had a problem before) a few days before, threw it in the fridge, decanted, etc. No issues there. Yeast fuel was used in both the starter and the wort.

Other than my CFC clogging due to the large amount of hop sludge, and having to resort to bucket in the sink method, there weren't any problems brewing. However, my first temperature corrected OG reading was 1.164. Yeesh - Dave's Dreaded Calculator claimed a high end ABV of 21.5%. I decided I must have not added enough makeup water (it was all measured with a marked pitcher) and threw in about another gallon. That dropped the OG down to 1.134, which gives me a potential ABV of 17.6%. I had tasted both, and decided that adding any more would water it down too much.

AHS claims a FG of 1.019, although of course that is assuming no Alcohol Boost is used. If that were still true, I'd end up with an ABV of 15.4%, which while a tad higher than I wanted (I was going for about 10%), would be OK.

My question are: Does WLP001 with a 1L starter (~15 minutes of aquarium stone aeration in the primary) stand a chance of making it that high, or if not, any guesses on a FG? If this turns out like a weaker 120 Minute I'd be OK, i.e. on the sweet side. I'm also OK with adding more de-aerated water prior to bottling, but obviously that depends on the FG I end up with.

I plan on giving it a week in the primary, and another week in the secondary, and then bottling. Any tips, thoughts, and so on would be greatly appreciated.

 

[dwarven_stout]

You must be making some sort of mistake. Partial Mash beers don't just double their gravity because they feel like it.

If I had to bet, there's something wrong with your hydro. Sometimes the paper scale inside will slip and give you a bad reading- it could be something like that. Does your hydro read 1.000 or close to it in pure water?

 

[NyPDFustercluck]

+1 to the hydro probably being wrong... What did your recipe look like?
If those numbers do turn out to be true, you'll probably need more than two weeks of fermentation to get your gravity down. I had a barleywine with an og of 1.1 and it took two packets of us-05 six weeks to finish chewing through all the fermentables.
Good luck!

 

[Stephonovich]

My hydrometer was showing (a corrected) 1.001 with pure water.

I realize miracles don't happen with brewing, so I'm going to go with my measurements were just way off somehow. In any case, I just hope the yeast can eat up most of it. I was going for a drier IPA. On that note, I assume you can pitch more yeast during fermentation with few-to-no ill effects?

Recipe was 9 pounds of Pale LME, 14 oz. of corn sugar (Alcohol Boost), 3.5 pounds of grains (I'd have to go find the recipe card to know which ones), and 6 ozs. of assorted hops - 5 ozs. during boil, 1 oz dry hop.

 

[NyPDFustercluck]

Oh man.... You sure it wasn't supposed to be 9# of grains instead of LME? That's a HUGE amount of extract to be going with your mash to boot. What was your final volume? The corn sugar in your recipe should aid in your attenuation, so you've got that going for you

Edit=> repitching is certainly okay if you're having attenuation problems. Just be sure to keep everything sanitary!

 

[Stephonovich]

Recipe is solid - it was an AHS kit, with everything pre-weighed and labeled.

 

[scrambledegg81]

I've had that happen where the hydrometer misreads because of hop sludge. Not really much you can do about it at this point from what I can tell, but since it's a pre-made extract kit, I wouldn't worry too much about OG being off.

 

[Stephonovich]

Just discovered the cause: the pitcher I was using to measure is, to say the least, way off. 1 qt (actual) = ~1.75 qts (indicated). Also, I put some Nottingham dry yeast I had into the primary - I don't care much about keeping the yeast strains pure, and it should help out. So, I guess I'm going to end up having a really strong IPA, albeit not quite 5 gallons.

Thanks all for your help.

 

[Stephonovich]

Just wanted to quickly let everyone know how it went.

I let it sit in the primary for 2 weeks, and after seeing the sediment that was still there (I need a hop sock...), I decided to put it into the secondary for another 2 weeks. I'd used Whirlfloc, so most everything settled out in the secondary, even the dry hop add. I ended up getting 16 bottles, or 1.5 gallons. So, yeah, about mis-measuring...

The fantastic thing is, it's great! I'd describe it as a weaker version of DFH 120 - very very malty, with hops in the aftertaste. ABV came in at 12.8% - not sure if the yeast gave up, or it needed a lot longer to pull through. In any case, I'm happy with the results, given the long string of mistakes.

This is why I love homebrewing. You have to really screw something up to get undrinkable swill. Let it sit, and wait.

Anyway, off to have another go - I'm making an Imperial Agave Wit that should be tasty. Going to try primary only this time, so I'll see how that works out.

 

[JoePro]

12.8 ABV? Please tell me you have some bottled for aging a year.

 

[terrapinj]

could you not tell from the bucket/carboy that you only had ~ 2gallons instead of 5?

what did your FG end up being?

 

[Stephonovich]

I knew the beer was wrong when I measured the initial OG, before I added some more makeup water. I basically decided to split the difference; thinking that if I added enough water to bring it where it should be, the flavor might suffer.

I unfortunately threw out the sheet which had the FG on it; but doing some quick algebra gives me a FG of 1.039.

As to aging, I hadn't considered it, but I think I will stash away a couples of bottles to see how it works out.