RIS Stuck Ferment with Champagne Yeast.

[Henry85]

Ive had this stout going for about 5 weeks now. Extract recipe from Adam Avery via Sam Calagione's Extreme Brewing. Hit the OG, 1.104, pitched with only one packet 1056, gravity within a week was 1.034. After no movement for a while asked my LHBS guy, he said try some champagne yeast,(Lalvin ec-118). Pitched dry into the fermenter. Dropped around .002 points, then nothing. Pitched again 5 days ago, this time with a small head start of bottling sugar and water. Another small drop so currently Im at 1.028, FG should have been 1.024. Question is, 1)Why are 3 different strains having trouble finishing this job?
2) When I try to bottle this in the next few weeks, is there going to be anything in there able to bottle condition?

Thanks for any feed back.

 

[splattsmier]

That's a hefty beer. 1.028 may be a touch high, but it's in the ballpark given your OG. Not sure about the other strain issues though. Maybe old yeast.

PS I'd STRONGLY recommend a huge starter next time.

 

[day_trippr]

I dunno that going from 1.104 down to 24 points on an all-extract recipe is realistic, but there's no doubt the initial pitch was severely underweight: MrMalty recommends nearly 4 pouches of liquid yeast for that big a beer. Now that the alcohol content is fairly high, new yeast probably can't cope. And, btw, doing a "starter" with table or corn sugar will result in yeast that won't take on more complex sugars with much vigor.

Given everything that's been tossed in since, the odds are it would take a healthy dose of WLP099 to move the needle much further at this point...

Cheers!

 

[Henry85]

I know now after starting this that a bigger pitch was needed in the beginning. Kinda bs I have to figure that out on my own outside of a book written for the purpose of brewing big beers. Thanks for the replies, if the needle doesn't move any more this week I may have to try the wlp099. My real question at this point is with this gravity remaining, will I be able to bottle and carbonate this beer safely?

 

[TNGabe]

I know now after starting this that a bigger pitch was needed in the beginning. Kinda bs I have to figure that out on my own outside of a book written for the purpose of brewing big beers. Thanks for the replies, if the needle doesn't move any more this week I may have to try the wlp099. My real question at this point is with this gravity remaining, will I be able to bottle and carbonate this beer safely?

The extreme yeast section starts page 60, the information you missed is on pgs 63-64. Not the best info or the best organized. You might want to read How to Brew if you haven't already. It's the standard primer on homebrewing.

If you beer is done at 1.028, that's pretty good and close enough to target OG that I wouldn't mess with it. You do want to be sure it's stable to avoid overcarbonation. When it's time to bottle, I would add more champagne yeast to be safe. Rehydrating is preferable, you get more healthy cells and it will mix with the beer more evenly. I use a gram of yeast when bottling. Bottle conditioing high abv beers is another challenge and sometimes takes a while.

 

[smokinghole]

At this point its not a yeast issue, its sugar. Champagne yeast primarily ferments sucrose/fructose which primarily makes up fruit must. You have a lot of maltose and and other larger sugars. The enzymes necessary to break the sugar bonds is not in champagne yeast's arsenal. If you were adding more simple sugars it'd give you a high alcohol beer. However a high gravity all malt beer will end high with champagne yeast. So unless you want to add Wlp099 you are done. Also tread lightly with 099. Its a beast and may dry you out past 1.020 without breaking a single celled sweat.

 

[Henry85]

Huh, there it is on page 62. Not too worried about it drying out, still quite sweet on the start. Guess ill try to bottle here in a few, with a towel and a mop near by while they condition. Thanks for the input everyone.

 

[smokinghole]

What would you need a mop for? If it hasn't dropped gravity yet it will not unless you use 099 or a brettanomyces strain.

Depending on the company your extract was made by they have standard average attenuation figures. For example briess advertises 75% attenuation in most cases. You are near 70% attenuation right now. With an increase with gravity there I also an increase of those sugars in the 25% that don't ferment, well proportionally at least. So if you brewed a 1.050 extract beer and a 1.100, you should theoretically end up with twice the final gravity if using an appropriate amount of the same yeast. So I wouldn't worry about bottles blowing unless you overdose priming sugar.

 

[Henry85]

Cool, thanks smoking. I'm clearly still learning the finer points of the back half of brewing.

 

[smokinghole]

That's what we're here for to help each other learn.

 

[ArcaneXor]

You could try CBC-1 or WLP099 to dry it out further if you wish. You could also probably get a couple of more points out of it by adding a little amylase. If that doesn't work, there are stronger enzymes out there, but they are also much more aggressive - I only recommend them if everything else has failed.