getting to 18%

[Stephanj88]

So one night while me and a few friends were putting together a few brews we had the idea "what the heck lets make something that hits 18% just cuz." I found a traditional ginger beer recipe and altered it a bit. We micro planed 2 ginger fingers, a bottle of real lime that equaled 3 limes, and added it to 3 gallons of water. Then we added enough sugar to get to 1.090 then added yeast nutrient and energizer. I selected Lalvin KV 1116 because I had heard it was a pretty alcohol tolerant yeast up 18% some had said they got it to 20. After it had fermented down to 1.040 we added enough sugar to to boost it up to 1.080 (we knew we needed 1.130 to get around 18% so we just did 1.130 - 1.090 = .040). it was still fermenting hard so we figured there was a nice co2 blanket and didn't have to worry about oxidation when shaking the into the mixture. So everything was going good until last week. Bubbling slowed to almost nothing and it appears to be starting to clear. When i hydro it I get 1.075 so im sitting around 7%. I don't know if the way we mixed in extra sugar threw off measurements because it tastes way more boozy then my apfelwine. So any ideas or help on how to get something like this to 18% would be great

 

[edmanster]

my understanding is that wine yeast cant consume maltotriose sugar!!

 

[Stephanj88]

Hmmm well that might be it, though once I had a federweisser ferment dry from 1.090 to 1.000 using plain table sugar and lavin D-47. That was pretty gross too lol. It fermented a lot faster then I thought it would have lol.

 

[Stephanj88]

Well gave it a good swirl to rouse them yeasties. Looks to be some more airlock activity. Would there be a better way to get that high of a percentage?

 

[TopherM]

Almost everyone that makes uber-ABV beers has to pitch at least twice. It also sometimes helps if the second yeast you use is a different, but similar, strain than the first.

 

[edmanster]

Almost everyone that makes uber-ABV beers has to pitch at least twice. It also sometimes helps if the second yeast you use is a different, but similar, strain than the first.

I was thinking about this yesterday but if they started with wine yeast and pitch ale yeast will there be a problem since the wine yeast is competitive?

 

[Yooper]

A good way to "push" ABV levels is to do more incremental feeding, instead of adding the sugar all at once like the second addition.

Normally, you'd let it ferment down further the first time, add 1/3 of the remaining sugar. Let that ferment out, add some yeast nutrients, and then add again. Adding 40 points of sugar to a fermentation that already has 6% ABV seems to have overwhelmed the yeast. Next time, do it incrementally and you should be all set.

To try to get this going again, I'd buy some EC-1118 yeast, rehydrate that, and make a small starter for it with some sugar water. Add just a tiny bit of your must and see if it keeps going. If it does, add some more, diluted with some water. Keep doing that until you've got it fermenting well and try adding that to your fermenter. Once you have some alcohol in the mix, it's hard to get yeast going so they need to be acclimated to it. That should help.

 

[Stephanj88]

Wow sounds great guys I'll try that, and thanks Yooper you are a brewing Goddess.