I have been planning to make a root-beer flavored beer. It'll probably have at least a partial malt extract base and I'm hoping for at least a few percent alchohol, but hopefully not too much. Root beer is quite sweet and it calls for a lot of unfermented sugar.
In regular soda making when they use yeast to carb the sodas, the technique seems to be to just toss the stuff in the fridge to send the yeast into hibernation so it stays sweet, doesn't explode, and doesn't turn into some kind of mead wine from the 4lbs of straight sugar.
I'm thinking I should be able to do this 3 days into primary fermentation with 3%-5% alchohol and still keep (or add to taste) unfermented sugars for sweetness.
But I've also noticed that for meads, ciders and wines etc, people use camden tablets and potassium sorbate to do this, especially when they want to add sugars to sweeten, although that seems to be only for when they're not looking for carbonation.
Is this because champagne yeasts withstand colder temperatures and higher pressures in the bottle than an ale yeast would? Can I take a beer that's been half fermented and stop it by tossing it in the fridge, to keep the sugars unconverted or 'back-sweeten' with more sugar without causing bottles to explode? Or is there a better way?
My thoughts on a non-fermentable sugar like lactose is that it wouldn't taste the same.
I was thinking of using Wyeast Beglian Saison to try this, both because it has a very high temperature range (70-95 deg. F) which should make it easier to put to sleep in the fridge, and also because Wyeast's website description says this:
"This strain is notorious for a rapid and vigorous start to fermentation, only to stick around 1.035 sg. Fermentation will eventually finish, given time and warm temperatures. "
It seems like a good yeast to try to halt mid-ferment like this.
In regular soda making when they use yeast to carb the sodas, the technique seems to be to just toss the stuff in the fridge to send the yeast into hibernation so it stays sweet, doesn't explode, and doesn't turn into some kind of mead wine from the 4lbs of straight sugar.
I'm thinking I should be able to do this 3 days into primary fermentation with 3%-5% alchohol and still keep (or add to taste) unfermented sugars for sweetness.
But I've also noticed that for meads, ciders and wines etc, people use camden tablets and potassium sorbate to do this, especially when they want to add sugars to sweeten, although that seems to be only for when they're not looking for carbonation.
Is this because champagne yeasts withstand colder temperatures and higher pressures in the bottle than an ale yeast would? Can I take a beer that's been half fermented and stop it by tossing it in the fridge, to keep the sugars unconverted or 'back-sweeten' with more sugar without causing bottles to explode? Or is there a better way?
My thoughts on a non-fermentable sugar like lactose is that it wouldn't taste the same.
I was thinking of using Wyeast Beglian Saison to try this, both because it has a very high temperature range (70-95 deg. F) which should make it easier to put to sleep in the fridge, and also because Wyeast's website description says this:
"This strain is notorious for a rapid and vigorous start to fermentation, only to stick around 1.035 sg. Fermentation will eventually finish, given time and warm temperatures. "
It seems like a good yeast to try to halt mid-ferment like this.