Wine yeast in beer

[The_Dutch]

So here's the deal...a friend of mine gave me a kit he's had laying around and he doesn't have the time so he gave it to me...I brewed the beer and I was lazy and didn't thoroughly look through the contents..well when I was ready to pitch my yeast I realized there was no yeast in the kit...well I did have some lalvin yeast left from a batch of mead I did months back so I figured why not...I pitched the yeast and let it go..and it went...i dry hopped a few weeks later and now I'm ready to bottle...I am wondering if I put priming sugar in it if it will carb up like normal.

OG 1.064
FG 1.018

I will say checking the gravity the flavor is different so I guess I'll have to bottle it and see how it tastes I don't know how it will be affected by this..let me know. Thanks

 

[madscientist451]

Yeah go for it. The yeast in there will carb up your beer. But for the future, there's no point in reinventing the wheel. Many years of selecting yeast strains have given us all kinds of great yeasts for many different purposes. I've tried beer yeast in cider (which is really a wine) and some are OK, but some aren't. But never tried a wine yeast in beer.
Who knows? Maybe it will come out great!

 

[jurgenph]

a while back i purchased a few beers to sample. and right now, i can't remember the name or the brewery. all i remember is that they were fermented with wine yeast, and had fruits (including grapes) added during barrel aging/conditioning.

they were quite tasty


J.

 

[Lefou]

I'd be wary of using a higher attenuating wine or champagne yeast for bottle conditioning unless you knew much of the fermentation was finished. Wine yeasts have a higher tolerance for alcohol and under certain circumstances you can get a dry beer and chance a possible over-carbing issue. The KV-1116 and EC-1118 yeasts will eat up maltotriose, a complex sugar a less vigorous yeast might leave behind.
Hope you're using the D47 or 7B-1122 because the other two I mentioned are some scary vigorous yeasts.

I haven't used wine or champagne yeasts for bottle-conditioning ales, but ... I have used extended mash times with added amylase additions in mash water set for lower temps. In a blonde ale using WLP001 California ale yeast, my beer carbonated beautifully when bottled at 1.010 gravity, but when tested again after carbing, my finished beer gravity was equal to/less than 1.004.
I won't say "don't do this", but will say be careful, and if possible, put your bottles in a covered container - just in case. Who knows? You just may get that wonderful, dry, and well-carbed beer you're chasing.

 

[Lefou]

Yeah go for it. The yeast in there will carb up your beer. But for the future, there's no point in reinventing the wheel. Many years of selecting yeast strains have given us all kinds of great yeasts for many different purposes. I've tried beer yeast in cider (which is really a wine) and some are OK, but some aren't. But never tried a wine yeast in beer.
Who knows? Maybe it will come out great!

As a noob, I've used S-05 ale yeast to push a mead with nutrient additions well past the stated alcohol tolerance level. Honey consists mainly of simple sugars and is very fermentable. The final ABV of that mead ended up around 14%.
Yeast will surprise you sometimes. Honestly, I'd only chance a wine or champagne yeast on an obviously "stuck" fermentation if it was the only choice I had. A better choice would be to use a more attenuative ale or lager yeast like S-23 or 34/70, hoping the complex sugars would be left over.

 

[ShareBrewing]

Gotta be careful with certain wine yeasts. Some will produce sulfur as vary biproducts and can also produce compounds that kill/inhibit the other yeast currently in suspension. This could cause come autolysis flavors to come out.

Aside from the potential over-carbing, some off flavors may result from the use of wine yeast at bottling/finishing a beer. I bottle my sours in the 750mL cork n cage Belgian bottles, but I need champagne yeast to carb it up. This doesn't affect the beer too much though, as it has been conditioning for so long.

 

[couchsending]

So here's the deal...a friend of mine gave me a kit he's had laying around and he doesn't have the time so he gave it to me...I brewed the beer and I was lazy and didn't thoroughly look through the contents..well when I was ready to pitch my yeast I realized there was no yeast in the kit...well I did have some lalvin yeast left from a batch of mead I did months back so I figured why not...I pitched the yeast and let it go..and it went...i dry hopped a few weeks later and now I'm ready to bottle...I am wondering if I put priming sugar in it if it will carb up like normal.

OG 1.064
FG 1.018

I will say checking the gravity the flavor is different so I guess I'll have to bottle it and see how it tastes I don't know how it will be affected by this..let me know. Thanks

All depends on which wine yeast. I would be willing to bet that you used one that doesn't eat Maltotriose hence the 1.018 FG. Extract? AG?

Wine yeast will eat the Sugar so it should carb.

Wine yeast can give some awesome, unique flavors but depends on a number of variables.

 

[Grod1]

just for the sake of the title i would like to point out that the rosalare ale blend has a sherry strain in it. Also I have been fermenting ales with "chardonnay" from bootleg biology that what isolated of chardonnay grapes.

 

[Comfort_Zone]

As long as it works and it tastes good I say go for it. I've actually been thinking about making a saison with K1-V1116.

Edit: to ensure good conversion I'd consider some amylase.

 

[couchsending]

If you haven't listened to the Brewing Network podcast from a ways back with the Yeast Whisperer I would highly recommend it. Maybe the best brewing podcast I've ever listened to. Everything you need to know about brewing with wine yeast.

 

[ukulele01]

1116, 1118, and DV-47 are all killer stains and will kill most brewer's yeast within 12 hours, although I am not sure about Belgian yeast.

Lefro, I believe you are correct that 1116 yeast can ferment maltotriose (I am awaiting a reply from Lellemand about this), but incorrect about 1118 yeast. AFAIK 1118, like most wine yeast, cannot ferment maltotriose, which is one reason it is often used for bottle conditioning by home brewers. This prevents over-carbonation, which can sometimes happen when brewer's yeast "wakes up" again long after bottling, to ferment more maltotriose.

I second the recommendation for the podcast couchsending mentioned. It is great!

http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/post1888/

To summarize: most wine yeast are POF+ (phenol off flavour). There are only six that are POF-, of which three are commonly available: 71B, 1118, and 1116. Only 71B is kill factor negative and can be co-pitched with brewer's yeast. The other two are kill factor positive and should be used split batch fashion (70% brewer's yeast, 30% wine yeast) and be blended post-fermentation.

In terms of what they can add to the flavour, 71B adds fruit salad type esters, 1116 adds stone fruit / peach esters, and 1118 is neutral / winey.

Hope that helps.

 

[Lefou]

There is some information somewhere on the Web about Jim Koch experimenting with high ABV fermentation he barrel-aged. He did a two-pronged experiment using high gravity wort, first using EC1118, then fermented a second identical wort with ale yeast followed by EC1118.
This product was around 16% ABV, differed in characteristic flavors, and was barrel-aged for 2-3 months.
This was back in 2000.
If EC1118 doesn't metabolize maltotriose, then it would make sense using it to ferment beer wort - and expect a moderate amount of non-fermentables to be left behind to do Eisbock or barley wines.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

It's worth having a read of this summary of the recent Gallone et al paper on the yeast family tree and how it relates to the domestication of yeast.

The short version is that in general beer yeast are more like dogs, highly adapted to living with humans (as humans were brewing with them through the year), whereas wine yeasts are like cats, closer to the "wild" (as they spent most of the year on vines and only fermented once a year), and as such are less well adapted to fermenting beer worts. In particular wine yeasts tend to be POF+ (produce phenolics) and can't ferment maltotriose, which is rare in grape juice but is needed to be consumed if you want good attenuation in a malt mash.

But as has been mentioned above, there are a few wine yeasts that are more "domesticated" than the normal ones.

That paper also found a couple of beer yeasts that are clearly "primitive" wine yeasts - mostly they are found as part of the mix in Belgian beer yeasts, but it looks like WLP099 is a wine yeast too. So anyone who has used WLP099, has used a wine yeast in beer...

 

[SanPancho]

1116, 1118, and DV-47 are all killer stains and will kill most brewer's yeast within 12 hours, although I am not sure about Belgian yeast.

Lefro, I believe you are correct that 1116 yeast can ferment maltotriose (I am awaiting a reply from Lellemand about this), but incorrect about 1118 yeast. AFAIK 1118, like most wine yeast, cannot ferment maltotriose, which is one reason it is often used for bottle conditioning by home brewers. This prevents over-carbonation, which can sometimes happen when brewer's yeast "wakes up" again long after bottling, to ferment more maltotriose.

I second the recommendation for the podcast couchsending mentioned. It is great!

http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/post1888/

To summarize: most wine yeast are POF+ (phenol off flavour). There are only six that are POF-, of which three are commonly available: 71B, 1118, and 1116. Only 71B is kill factor negative and can be co-pitched with brewer's yeast. The other two are kill factor positive and should be used split batch fashion (70% brewer's yeast, 30% wine yeast) and be blended post-fermentation.

In terms of what they can add to the flavour, 71B adds fruit salad type esters, 1116 adds stone fruit / peach esters, and 1118 is neutral / winey.

Hope that helps.

Any chance you ha e list of the other POF- types?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

See this thread for various wine yeasts that were tested for POFness, which I added killer status to :
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/from-the-lab-wine-yeast-pof-and-killer-status.648095/

 

[couchsending]

1116 is definitely very Pear forward. I can’t remeber the name of the acetate that gives you pear but it’s in the description from Lallemand. I definitely get a decent amount of sulfur and it does not want to flocc at all. I’ve only fermented it in the high 50s/low 60s. Going to try it in the 70s soon to see if I can actually get a little less floral/Pear aroma. Last batch mashed at around 149 only got to 1.016 from 1.064. It might ferment Maltotriose but it definitely doesn’t chew through everything.

 

[z-bob]

I used 1116 in a SMaSH beer recently; just pilsner malt and a light touch of Sterling hops. So no place for any defects to hide. The beer turned out great. I think I can detect a hint of skunkiness even tho' the beer was never exposed to any UV light sources, but that might just be my imagination because I was looking for faults. Nobody else can taste it.

I fermented this in the low 60's, and it took it's sweet time finishing. The hydrometer says it went to 1.000 but I don't believe that. Going to try this yeast again a little warmer and with a darker malt bill next time.

 

[Comfort_Zone]

This has been a great read as I've been contemplating a recipe for a sort of white wine inspired beer using K1-V1116 and I've been trying to figure out what flavor profile to expect.

 

[SanPancho]

im working up the brew today, so hopefully within a week or so should have an idea of the general direction it went. taking a while to grow up the brett starter though.

although it did take off pretty fast, so i guess this will be somewhat of a race between the two to ferment out. im wondering if maybe i should give the wine a day or two head start as i already know what the brett tastes like.....