The highest gravity beers I have done were 9-10% ABV, so not quite as high as yours.
However, I have never had to reseed, but one thing I do out of greed rather than good technique is to transfer the less floculant yeast into the bottling bucket and make sure they all get well mixed with the priming sugar (liquid).

It could be completely anectdotal, but to me I think it is these yeasts that you need to carbonate, not the flocced ones that have built their reserves and gone to sleep. You are trying to wake them up in a very toxic environment to work on a scarce food source.

Have you thought about reseeding with a yeast designed for bottle carbonation?
I am not sure if you can get it, and there may be equivalents in each country, but one that springs to mind is Safbrew F-2.

To quote Joshua - JMHO, YMMV

Great article link Rick . Can't believe she says fermentor instead of fermenter . I'm actually discontinuing writing 'fermentor' as who searches for that? (It's also as correct as fermenter so no probs ).

Anyway, you definitely don't want to introduce oxygen into your packaged beer. Be great to see how your introduction of the new yeast works out.

mally wrote:The highest gravity beers I have done were 9-10% ABV, so not quite as high as yours.
However, I have never had to reseed, but one thing I do out of greed rather than good technique is to transfer the less floculant yeast into the bottling bucket and make sure they all get well mixed with the priming sugar (liquid).

It could be completely anectdotal, but to me I think it is these yeasts that you need to carbonate, not the flocced ones that have built their reserves and gone to sleep. You are trying to wake them up in a very toxic environment to work on a scarce food source.

Have you thought about reseeding with a yeast designed for bottle carbonation?
I am not sure if you can get it, and there may be equivalents in each country, but one that springs to mind is Safbrew F-2.

To quote Joshua - JMHO, YMMV

Yes sir, original yeast was Wyeast 1028 which was a partial cake from the porter I fermented before it. On bottling day, I mixed in a fresh tube of the same strain. 6 weeks later, still flat. About a week ago I went ahead and pulled the caps off (after checking a bottle w/ my hydrometer to be sure the sugar was still there), and then reseeded with about a half pack of US05. This was for about 3 cases.

PistolPatch wrote:Great article link Rick . Can't believe she says fermentor instead of fermenter . I'm actually discontinuing writing 'fermentor' as who searches for that? (It's also as correct as fermenter so no probs ).

Anyway, you definitely don't want to introduce oxygen into your packaged beer. Be great to see how your introduction of the new yeast works out.

Fermentor sounds like a superhero from a really bad movie. I'm thinking, like a brewing safety video made on a corporate level (cheesy videos that remind me of crap that I watched in school).

Update on the three most recent brews,

- Lefty Blond from BCS ... finished at 1.009. Used my Sous Vide to ramp it up to 85F, plenty of esters. I still have another cube of this which I'll keep the temperature lower(76F tops), just to see the difference. I kept it cooler last time I brewed it, and remember it tasting much better at this stage. It's clean and delicious, just maybe a bit too pungent for me.

- Scaled up Trailbreaker IIPA. 1.077 down to 1.010 with WLP002. Gotta say, I was really sweating attenuation with this one, but it couldn't have turned out more perfect. I have another cube of this that I will ferment with typical US05 ... just to decide what I will use for this recipe in the future. It all depends how the maltiness jibes with the hops. This is my most brewed recipe, and I'm tempted to make this on all three kettles on a single brew day at this point. It's amazing every single time. Generally, everyone compliments every single one of my beers (drives me nuts, because I really want to be criticized), but this one they usually wear the compliment on their faces. The only tweak made to the malts this time around was using Baird C15 in place of typical Caravienne. I also went back to honey malt, last time was raw/unfiltered crystallized honey from a local apiary. Haven't even dry hopped it yet, and I can already say that I do prefer honey malt for the honey note in this recipe. I also feel like this C15 layers pretty well with the honey malt. In previous batches, to me either the honey malt or caravienne dominated the flavor profile no matter how I shifted them around. I also did not use munich malt in this recipe back then, so it could be that tying it all together. It could also be the english yeast! We'll see after the next cube is fermented. I could spend years on this recipe alone, the more I brew it ... the more I learn.

- 1.059 to 1.014. Hoppy English Pale Ale w/ American hops (1:1 Citra:Simcoe) - malt bill inspired by Ballast Point Grunion. Smelled amazing going into the keg, but I'm a bit worried that I let it get too warm during fermentation. (the outlet my fridge is plugged into is tied to a switch, and I shut it off like a moron). The light in that section of my basement has a chain, but I have a bad habit of using the switch to turn that on and off as well. I will have to build a box around it for next time. It tasted pretty estery going into secondary, but all that is now masked by the greenness of the dry hops ... we'll see what happens.

You didn't say if you fermented them in a fermenter or fermentor .

Great read as always Rick. I'm brewing a Wee Heavy later this week. Might email you for some tips .

Update on that Imperial Stout that WOULD NOT carbonate. It's been in the bottle over 2 mos now, but about a month since I re-yeasted.

I cracked one open yesterday, with carbonation drops in hand just in case ... but it's bubblin'!

Poured with a nice, thick head ... but still a little low for style. They will need to be chilled a bit to absorb the CO2 better, but I'm going to give them another 2 weeks before I let them go to their consumers.

WHEW! That was stressing me out.

BDP wrote:Hi Rick, I've been wondering how the carbonation was progressing, so timely update Glad it's working out for you.

reseeded with about a half pack of US05

How did you reseed exactly? Did you hydrate the yeast and then add a few drops to each bottle, or just sprinkle in a few granules of yeast into same? Or perhaps some other method that I have not thought of ...?

Cheers

Yep, I rehydrated and put about 5 drops in per bottle using a pipette. I rehydrated the whole pack of yeast, and used about half total for 3 cases.

I left a few bottles alone, and plan to open one of those next week. If not carbonated, in they go to my used 1 gallon oak barrel.

Good stuff Rick .

I had bit of a read back through but couldn't find any discussion of adding a tad more priming sugar. Would have that been another option?

I'm assuming you went the yeast option because you noticed absolutely no carbonation after the first prime?

I love reading about your (and other members) super high gravity exploits .

PistolPatch wrote:Good stuff Rick .

I had bit of a read back through but couldn't find any discussion of adding a tad more priming sugar. Would have that been another option?

I'm assuming you went the yeast option because you noticed absolutely no carbonation after the first prime?

I love reading about your (and other members) super high gravity exploits .

I got quite a few readings of 1.020 at the end of fermentation, after the bulk prime it jumped to about 1.024. Each bottle that was opened for testing was still 1.024. This check was performed, just to rule out a bad cap seal if the beer was still flat.

I did buy some carbonation drops to keep on hand for this, and even though I was pretty sure the priming sugar was still unfermented; i was going to add a drop to each bottle with even more yeast had this latest bottle been flat.

Last resort would have been to pour it into a keg, carbonate ... then bottle from there. For future batches, kegging is likely how I will process it. I wanted to bottle condition this brew for the most accurate results, but it has been a real pain in the ass!

Bringing this from another thread as to not hijack.

Mad_Scientist wrote:Rick, how was the IIPA you had on your birthday? I know it was outstanding, knowing you. Happy belated birthday dude. Thank you for all your hard work on this site (and the new site)!!!

Cheers

Sent from my XT1053 using Tapatalk

It was pretty good! Although, I do prefer the original 8%ABV version (this one 8.9%) version ... really was a neat experiment to see what scaling up a bit can do for a recipe.

I've done many IPA's from 1.044 all the way up to 1.090, and truly believe 1.070 is the perfect spot for me. This one was 1.077 after diluting a bit from higher than expected evap.

It's still a touch on the green side, and taking slightly longer to mature than it usually does, could completely change my mind by the next tasting.

One question that comes to mind for me, is about scaling up specialty malts. The honey malt is coming through much more than it has in the past, which could be an illusion due to the nature of higher gravity "sweetness" that's carrying it along. Or, simply I should use the same weight of the 1.070 recipe (which would be less percentage) and gain the ABV boost from more base malts. Next time I go higher gravity, I may tweak the recipe with this in mind. I've read many times that using percentage to scale up everything is not preferred in many cases, this is the first evidence of that I have noticed. Also, perhaps I should boost the percentage in a lighter gravity brew to get a maltier profile. This is a tough thought experiment considering that I am also playing around with different yeast strains, but at least my batches are big enough to split and compare side by side.

It really is tough work nailing this recipe exactly how I want it, but it's not a bad thing.

Interesting about the scaling Rick. I presume this is scaling for gravity not volume though?

mally wrote:Interesting about the scaling Rick. I presume this is scaling for gravity not volume though?

Yes, all of these batches for this particular recipe have been 11G/41.64L VIF. After my massive dry hopping losses I typically end up with just over 9G/34L VIP.

Another thing I noticed between US05 and WLP002 halves, is the hop losses weren't as much for the higher flocc'ing yeast. Dry hops are typically still floating on the top with US05, but WLP002 sunk every particle pretty tight to the bottom.

Rick wrote:...One question that comes to mind for me, is about scaling up specialty malts. The honey malt is coming through much more than it has in the past, which could be an illusion due to the nature of higher gravity "sweetness" that's carrying it along...

Great insight, as usual Rick .

I think your reasoning is excellent and probably correct but...

For other readers, a warning...

Quite a lot of software scales specialty malts not as a percentage and this is incorrect. I've written on it before but basically, if you and I are making the same amount of "recipe" at the same strength, then you and I should use the same percentages of malts. In other words, if you are making "Volume of Ambient Wort" of 5 gallons and I'm making 10 gallons, I should still use the same percentages of malts as you.

What Rick is talking about is a different thing, a very interesting thing and, an advanced thing.

Great stuff Rick! Just wanted to make sure that anyone who does use software that "balances" specialty malts realises that those programs are distorting them, not balancing them*.


Pat

* All they are doing is making sure "their" colour formulas (which are based on errors), stay the same - long story, similiar to the IBU one.

Good catch, PP ... I can see how that might confuse somebody. Some detail ...

In the past, I always have used 2.5% honey malt for this recipe... which was increased to about 3.1% recently (and successfully). This progression went something like ...

5.5G/20.82L VIF batch size used for this example;

Brew A 2.5%/.4lb @ 1.070 honey malt very light in flavor, imperceptible to some.
Brew B 3.1%/.49lb @ 1.070 Good, basically perfect.
Brew C 3.1%/.57lb @ 1.077 Whoa there, getting dangerous with the honey but still good. Same basic recipe, just scaled all of it up using BIABacus OG override.

All finished at 1.010


Some other variables, Brew A did not have munich malt in the recipe, but B and C did(about 7%). Brew A and B used Caravienne (about 3.8%), Brew C used the same amount of Baird C15.

Brews A and B used 50/50 Mosaic and Galaxy for aroma hops, Brew C has Mosaic/Galaxy/Simcoe @ 33.333/33.333/33.333 for aroma hops to bump the pine a bit.

I can see how the sweetness might get out of hand with munich, british crystal and honey malt in the same bill ... but I have been creeping the specialty malt amounts from 1.5% over the past few years. I'll try to not overthink it just yet, because the beer isn't quite in its prime. I may just drop the crystal all together and leave everything else the same for next time, we'll see. These tweaks are rather difficult to settle on!

BDP wrote:Hi Rick,

Getting back to the priming issue from earlier this month, I happened on this yeast info:
http://www.danstaryeast.com/company/pro ... beer-yeast

Also notice that Todd posted a response with this same info back in 2013:
http://www.biabrewer.info/viewtopic.php ... c+1#p30672

I have not seen it stocked at the homebrew store I shop at, and am therefore not sure how popular it is. Sounded like a good option for a stuck bottle fermentation.

Cheer

Weird, I thought that I replied to this. I suppose I never hit 'submit' ... apologies. Thanks for posting that, I'll order a few packs and keep it on hand! My plan was to bottle high gravity from the keg, but I'm really not liking the idea ...

To me, bottle conditioned vs. kegged of the same batch will taste very different. I strongly prefer bottle conditioning, and rarely use my kegerator anymore.

Update on the many brews that I still have circulating from this year. This will probably be TL;DR for most.

11% Imp. Stout ... I had cigars with 4 friends the other night, and gave each of them a bottle. Oh man, is it perfect with a cigar ... cuts right through.

There were some IPA's in the mix, but that style really doesn't work for me while I'm smoking.


1.077 to 1.010 IIPA split batch - US05 vs WLP 002. Both attenuated the same, so that was nice.

77% PNW Canadian 2-Row
7% weyermann light munich
3.9% Baird Crystal 15
3.1% Honey Malt

3.9% Carapils
5.1% Dextrose

Warrior for bittering charge, equal parts Mosaic, Galaxy, Simcoe for the big flame out addition (4oz for typical 5.5G VIF). Lots of the same for dry hopping (7oz total per typical 5.5G VIF)

145F Beta-amylase rest for 60m
155F Alpha rest for 30m (includes ramp to mashout)

5.25 target mash pH, and loosely using the Pale Ale profile from Brun'Water.

My GF prefers the WLP002 version every single time. She thinks the US05 beer is sweeter, but literally everyone else thinks the opposite. Her palate is very good, so I wonder if she is sensitive to one of the malts, and US05 is somehow amplifying it for her.

My impressions are focused on the use of Baird Crystal 15. It lends a sweetness in both beers for me, when in the past my go-to Caravienne offers a caramel-like flavor with no (perceptable to me) additional sweetness. It could also be the Honey Malt used in tandem with the Munich doing this, but I think my mind is set on the first theory for now.

Anyway, I really like WLP002 for darker hoppy beers, but for a traditional west coast style ... the US05 nails it for me. I will continue to experiment with other strains.

I'll split this into a few posts ...

Ballast Point Grunion inspired Pale Ale

1.059 to 1.014


Times and Temperatures

Mash: 90 mins at 65 C = 149 F
Boil: 60 min
Ferment: 10 days at 17 C = 62.6 F


82.8% Maris Otter Edit: (Fawcett. Apparently, Kai had the same issues.)
4.2% Baird C30
6.4% Carapils
4.8% RedWht
1.8% Flaked Barley (had it laying around, why not)


The Hop Bill (Based on Tinseth Formula)
(per 5.5G VIF)
12.5 IBU Warrior Pellets (16.9%AA) 7g - Bittering addition
16.7 IBU Citra Pellets (13.4%AA) 36g - Flame out
15.8 IBU Simcoe Pellets (12.7%AA) 36g - Flame out
0 IBU Citra Pellets (13.4%AA) 71g (Dry Hopped after 10 days)
0 IBU Simcoe Pellets (12.7%AA) 71g (Dry Hopped after 10 days)


*Same mash pH target and water profile as the IIPA above*

Notes:

Everyone loved this beer, and most think it was my "best" to date. I couldn't disagree more. This was the batch that I mistakenly turned off my temperature controller, and it heated up. I could taste the esters, which were fine ... but it wasn't what the beer was supposed to be.

The beer was also very murky/opaque. No finings or anything, so I can only assume it was from the Maris Otter. I hear many will do a protein rest to keep this from happening? I dunno, this was a first for me.

I will definitely re-brew this recipe, even with all of the "mistakes" on my end ... it was pretty fantastic.

1.069 Belgian Blond (too much evap brought the OG up out of style, but I rolled with it and didn't dilute). Lefty Blond recipe from BCS, but fermented with Belgian Ardennes yeast.

First half of the batch I fermented up to 85F, and gave the fermenter to my homebrewer neighbor of mine to bottle. He wanted to use carbonation tabs, and then cork them into heavier bottles. I was on board with that, did the math ... and set him on his way.

The kicker, he gave me the wrong brand name of carbonation tabs ... so the information and then ensuing math was off. They ended up seriously under carbonated, but not terrible. To me, carbonation has a huge impact on this type of beer. I was pissed, but whatever ... I can't do everything.

The second half I went to ferment (cooler this time), and discovered the seal on my no-chill cube had failed. I have no idea how long it was sitting like that. It could have been 2 weeks, or a minute for all I knew. However, it smelled fine ... and the gravity was where it was on brew day.

I fermented away, and (2-3 wks later) bottled it on Saturday ... tasted/smelled nice and clean. Whew! Talk about skirting disaster for this Belgian (knock on wood).

The Old Ale I brewed late last year, is still sitting on Wyeast Brett-L .. and I took a sample of that just to taste the status of the French oak contribution (.5oz med-toast cubes in 5G). Nowhere near overpowering with the oak, but it's certainly there ... and tastes amazing. I seriously want to bottle it now, but I must keep on schedule and bottle that in August some time to give the brett an appropriate amount of time.

I haven't even checked gravity on this yet, but it's surely getting drier.

All 10G of my Flanders Red has made it to secondary fermenters with the cabernet soaked french oak cubes added (.5oz med-toast cubes per 5G). 1st Gen is very heavy on the Special B notes, which annoys me because it reminds me of Fat Tire. Second Gen (fermented on 1st Gen yeast and bugs) of the same batch is really good, though. Nice and sour, I planned to mix these ... but I may just bottle the 2nd Gen by itself depending on how funky it gets. Ultimately, I'll mix some samples to determine course of action.

As always, more information on any of these recipes and processes can be given at request.

All short termed beer has been processed, whew. I cracked open a Belgian last night, and it tastes great ... just like I remember. So glad I did not lose this batch due to the failed cube seal, that was unbelievably lucky.

I decided to take a brew hiatus for the summer to tackle a few projects around the house. Next up will be to bottle the Old Ale after its 8mos on Brett-L, and that will be early August for that.

I want to brew something in Sept, but we're getting word that I may have to travel to NOLA for work again around that time. Perhaps a Chicago trip around the same time, and then NOLA again in Dec ... hrmph.

My Coconut Porter is definitely on the list to brew, and I may pair that up with another batch of Imperial Stout to make good use of the yeast cake as I did last time. I'm also wanting to tackle a seasonal Saison, so this may go in kettle #2 instead. Not sure if I will do a 3rd kettle, it depends on how much help I get on that day. Perhaps I will leave that optional for somebody else to decide.

Funny story, I sold my ATV on Craigslist about a month ago. The couple that showed up to buy it ended up becoming our friends, and I'll likely have a new brew partner (one that is very intelligent for a change) this next time around.

Hops are fading on the Imperial IPA that was brewed in early April, I always look forward to this as it showcases the malts that can be hard to perceive through an onslaught of hops. For whatever reason, in both halves of this batch I'm getting a noticeable turbinado flavor and even worse, and big sweetness with it. It absolutely has to be the Baird C15, which I will not use again. It also seems to be clashing a bit with the honey malt, not my best attempt at layering.

As with any uber-complex interplay of ingredients, I just have to focus on what I believe to be the bright spot. Caravienne malt! It has been much more subtle as the brew ages, so I'll definitely head back in that direction. I'm also really going to dial up the bitterness, just to leave something to look forward to in the later stages. I usually like to keep my hoppy stuff low on bitterness, as to appeal to non-IPA drinkers ... but for this higher gravity stuff I feel like it's forcing me to get crazy (i.e. 120+ IBU/Tinseth target).

I've had some fantastic commercially brewed IIPA's that were in the same 9%-10% range, seems like I have to get back to the woodshed in order to produce a shining example. This is two failures at higher gravity IPA for me, so now the path is clear as to why these things are hopped so aggressively ... and malted so conservatively. It was great when fresh, but that's not "success" in my book.