It's Barleywine time again and I have some yeast questions

[imaguitargod]

It's obviously going very slow, but if you're measuring a drop from read to read then some activity is still happening. Wouldn't it be better to wait until you have consecutive readings with no change before repitching? From my reading of the discussions around high gravity brews, it doesn't sound that uncommon for them to take several weeks to ferment out. It may take some extra patience, but as long as the gravity keeps dropping I'd probably restrain from introducing a different yeast than what you've got working.

Hmm...didn't realise they go this slow at the end......you have a good point. I will wait....

 

[MeetsCriteria]

Well, all this talk about folks' high gravity beers not self carb'ing has me slightly concerned. Sort of surprised by that. Enough so that I went and roused the yeast in all my bottles (only been a week) of Old Monster.

I live right around the corner from Alesmith (I know, poor me). I'll have to ask them how they get consistent results with regards to bottle conditioning. They bottle condition ALL of their beers. This includes Speedway stout, which is over 12% ABV, among others. Their Wee Heavy, and Old Numbskull (Barleywine) are also > 10% ABV. I know they use WLP001 for most beers. Peter Zien told me that there is a run of Speedway from 2004 that they are STILL waiting on becoming fully carb'd. Apparently it's coming along, albeit VERY slowly. Apparently they changed something because that's not been a big issue for them, otherwise, as far as I know.

All their beers sit on pallets (think something like roughly 6-8 cubic feet of 22 oz bombers). They all sit in the warehouse, and they periodically taste to see when the batch is ready for release.

They don't use heating in the warehouse, so it gets into the 50s in there in the winter. Yet, they still seem to be able to get it to happen. That's why I'm confused by all the issues people are having.

That said, I know Lost Abbey has had some inconsistency problems with bottle conditioning, and are building a "warm room" to help combat the issue.

Next time I'm at Alesmith, I'll as one of the guys there how they ensure appropriate bottle conditioning consistently. They are very open regarding processes, etc.

Cheers,

Mike

 

[MeetsCriteria]

Hmm...didn't realise they go this slow at the end......you have a good point. I will wait....

Good call. Clearly your beer isn't finished attenuating. If you haven't read Ray Daniel's Book on "Designing Great Beers", Ray talks about different yeasts used for Barleywine.

One interesting fact he reports after performing regression analysis on all second round NHC Barleywines with regards to yeasts used, is that despite anecdotal evidence of Champagne yeast being more highly attenuating / alcohol tolerant than typical ale yeasts for style, this didn't actually bear out to be true at least in the winning examples of the style. In fact, it turns out, in the examples sited, Champagne yeast actually attenuated slightly less than many ale yeasts. There is some evidence that it can cause off flavors as well (though apparently not an issue in the examples advancing to the second round).

It also sounds like that for higher ABV beers, it is expected for yeast to attenuate less than it would for the same yeast in a lower gravity beer. Apparently anything greater than 75% is great.

Mine attenuated to 83% using WLP001 (mashed 90 min at 149 deg F). I was amazed. Of course, the 1L of slurry probably didn't hurt...

 

[Stratotankard]

Ok, I'll jump in here with my high gravity experiences. I brewed up the 9-9-9 Barleywine in September 08. It was my first all grain batch and somehow my efficiency was through the roof. Instead of 1.120 OG, I was at something above 1.165 (the end of my hydrometer's scale). I pitched onto a cake of Cry Havoc from a basic pale ale (all 2 row with a 1/2# of C60). I didn't have an O2 stone so I shook the hell out of my fermenter for 15 minutes. I can recommend a great work-out program based on brewing if anyone's interested. After a month I was down to only 1.080 and it slowly dropped to 1.050 over the next 2 months and wouldn't go any further.

At this point I made up a 1 gallon starter of WLP099 and pitched that. It promptly sank to the bottom of the fermenter and laughed at me. Every day for 2 weeks I shook the fermenter for at least 10 minutes to get the yeast off it's (their?) lazy ass. Verrrrrrrry slowly (over another 3 months) the gravity dropped and eventually bottomed out at 1.035. That's 17.3% ABV. If I had started with the -099 and actually followed all the recommended steps I imagine I might have gotten 20%. All told it took nearly 6 months to get to my FG. I didn't bother trying to bottle condition that beast. I borrowed a keg and force carbonated and BMBF'd it.

Patience is a virtue, especially with high gravity beers. It's been 10 months since I bottled (nearly 16 since brew day) and it's just now starting to mellow and blend well.

Terje

 

[MeetsCriteria]

That's quite a story! I can't imagine 1.165 wort!

Granted, my wort was "only" 1.116. But it attenuated to 1.019 on only 5 weeks, and likely less than that. The fact that I pitched on essentially a "double" yeast cake...from 8.5 gallons of 1.054 pale ale, subseqently used to ferment 6 gal of 1.066 porter, probably didn't hurt things. That yeast was then drained off the porter after only 2 weeks and used for the BW.

Oh, here's another thing I forgot to mention regarding Alesmith:

Peter suggested that overpitching yeast is essentially an urban legend. He said that they pitch 10X the recommended amount. He said that you are MUCH more likely to run in to problems UNDER pitching vs. OVER pitching. He noted that most homebrewers significanly underpitch. Believe it or not, they crash cool their IPA after only 6 days, which is hard to believe...but apparently true. In other words, it's fully attenuated in less than a week!

His thought was that you bypass time where yeast spend replicating. According to him, since there is so much yeast in solution, it goes essentially straight to fermentation. As such, I'm more convinced that it is virtually impossible for a homebrewer to overpitch. It's super easy to underpitch though...

Just random thoughts...

 

[imaguitargod]

Just an update in case anyone's still reading this. I took a reading last week and it was at 1.034. This week it's at 1.030. Those yeasts are slowing down considerably, but still are eating away. The sample I took was SATURATED with yeasties flowating about. I ended up raising the temp about two weeks ago to around 64/65F and every day I rock the fermentor just slightly.

 

[psychobrawler]

Well I did my barleywine on Sunday (OG 1.104) and pitched it on to a WL007 cake from an English Brown ale. It was fermenting within 2 hours and blowing off within 4. I blew off nearly a gallon of beer in the first 24 hours (5.5 gal in a 6.5 carboy w/ 1" blow off tube.) Second time I've lost that much during blow off of a high grav beer. Kind of a bummer. Anyway, by last night it appeared to stop cold and start to clear. I'll check this weekend, but I'm skeptical that I reached my target FG in 48 hours - even with that crazy fermentation. Awesome if it did though.

 

[imaguitargod]

Well I did my barleywine on Sunday (OG 1.104) and pitched it on to a WL007 cake from an English Brown ale. It was fermenting within 2 hours and blowing off within 4. I blew off nearly a gallon of beer in the first 24 hours (5.5 gal in a 6.5 carboy w/ 1" blow off tube.) Second time I've lost that much during blow off of a high grav beer. Kind of a bummer. Anyway, by last night it appeared to stop cold and start to clear. I'll check this weekend, but I'm skeptical that I reached my target FG in 48 hours - even with that crazy fermentation. Awesome if it did though.

Cleaning within 38 hours....hmmmmm...me thinks there's a problem. Be sure to report back with your gravity readings!

 

[psychobrawler]

Cleaning within 38 hours....hmmmmm...me thinks there's a problem. Be sure to report back with your gravity readings!

Well on day 3 it looked clear and I took a reading and was down to 1.028! I couldn't detect any weird off flavors either, but that's hard to say with the alcohol taste being so green still. I'm actually within the range of my target, and hopefully with a couple of weeks to let those yeasties clean up I'll get down around 1.020. This was my first time pitching onto a full cake and I'll definitely be repeating the process with my high gravity beers in the future.

 

[imaguitargod]

Well on day 3 it looked clear and I took a reading and was down to 1.028! I couldn't detect any weird off flavors either, but that's hard to say with the alcohol taste being so green still. I'm actually within the range of my target, and hopefully with a couple of weeks to let those yeasties clean up I'll get down around 1.020. This was my first time pitching onto a full cake and I'll definitely be repeating the process with my high gravity beers in the future.

WOW! Very cool! That's an amazing fermentation timeline. Great job!

 

[perrypainter]

If you want to be 100% sure you'll have enough yeast... just brew a simple extract pale ale a week before the barley wine, and pitch onto the cake for that. I did that for the 12% ABV 10-10-10 brew, and it took off like a rocket and attenuated really well.

So, are you saying that you just cool the wort all the way down in the kettle and add it straight to the used primary carboy? My huge problem is not being able to cool the wort fast enough.

 

[av8er79]

If you want to be 100% sure you'll have enough yeast... just brew a simple extract pale ale a week before the barley wine, and pitch onto the cake for that. I did that for the 12% ABV 10-10-10 brew, and it took off like a rocket and attenuated really well.

when you say pitch on the cake do you mean you siphon the pale ale out the bucket and drain the kettle right into the bucket the pale ale came out of?

 

[afr0byte]

when you say pitch on the cake do you mean you siphon the pale ale out the bucket and drain the kettle right into the bucket the pale ale came out of?

Yes, that's correct. Basic Brewing Video has a video on it, if you want to see it done.