using champagne yeast to finish a barleywine...

[yelram4life]

7 bbl batch Started @ 27.5 plato currently @ 10 plato and not moving...I've tried everything. Brewed on 10/13/09... suggestions? ideas? Anyone ever use champagne yeast to solve such a problem? Thanks for any help...

[wiredgourmet]

You are in the range of 10% ABV already. Forget about Champagne yeast. You're just going to shock it and introduce it into an environment with depleted nutrients (except sugar) and virtually no O2. It won't do much.

Problems are usually caused by inadequate pitch rates, the inability of such sweet wort to pick up O2 in the first place, the depletion of minerals and trace metals long before the depletion of sugar, and the fact that high-grav fermentation is hard on yeast health in general.

This is what I would do: take 3-5 L slurry from the fermenter in question and pitch it in 20-25L of the wort it's been fermenting. Add a dose of boiled yeast nutrient and oxygenate it for 24 hours with air or O2. Stop feeding O2 or air a few hours before repitching. Add a bit more yeast nutrient at repitch. You'll have active yeast that's already accustomed to the high alc level. You won't get much DO in your beer this way; the active yeast will consume it quickly.

[beerking1]

I have used champagne yeast that way on a homebrew scale, with poor results.

What has worked better for me is pitching an ACTIVE starter of a high tolerance yeast, such as 1056, or even the White Labs Super High Gravity.

[yelram4life]

Add a dose of boiled yeast nutrient and oxygenate it for 24 hours with air or O2. Stop feeding O2 or air a few hours before repitching.

In the absence of yeast nutrient, would you recommend using boiled yeast from in house? Rate?

[wiredgourmet]

In the absence of yeast nutrient, would you recommend using boiled yeast from in house? Rate?

Absolutely; that's basically what yeast nutrient is. The commercial stuff is grown in a medium that's optimised to give a good range of nutrients, but I kinda suspect that this is an incremental improvement for which we pay quite a bit.

I don't normally use nutrient, but for high-grav wort (+18P), I use dry nutrient at 10 g/hL and am satisfied with the results. Using regular yeast, I would try about 100 mL slurry per hL of wort. Boil vigourously in water or wort for a good 15 mins so the cells break down thoroughly.

[yelram4life]

100 mL slurry per hL of wort

Is this the rate you would add to the slurry I'm making to solve my original problem? Thanks for all your help...

[wiredgourmet]

Yes and to the fermenting wort that's stuck too.

[yelram4life]

thanks... I'll be trying this today. Hope it works...(fingers crossed)

[wiredgourmet]

Good luck, and let us know how it goes.