So, I brewed a monster barleywine with a high alcohol intolerant yeast strain. It’s stalled at 1.060.
I REALLY don’t want to dump this if I don’t have to because of the cost of producing it thus far. The only remaining solution I can think of to salvage the effort is to blend it with a different batch of beer and mitigate some of that intense sweetness.
Does anyone have any guidance as to how one goes about such a process?
Is there a way of calculating the gravity of the new, blended beer?
What about pitching some fresh yeasties instead to get the gravity down?
Dave
How big is “monster” (i.e., what was the OG?). Even a yeast strain with a really low alcohol tolerance should probably be able to get close to 10% before it gives up. Have you tried rousing the yeast and bumping up the temp?
If you are somehow really into high alcohol territory already, and rousing the yeast doesn’t work, then I’d try pitching a starter of WLP099 or maybe an alcohol tolerant Belgian strain at high krausen to get things rocking again.
http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=8283.msg103248#msg103248
Here’s a thread on what I did when I way overshot my OG on an old ale and it stalled (or perhaps hit a ABV where the yeast crapped out).
I brewed another, weaker batch, split it between two carboys and blended in the stronger beer. Fermentation took off and it fermented down to a reasonable FG and was still around 10%.
The end result was 8 gallons of awesome beer. I had friends dropping by until the kegs ran out.
I don’t recall what yeast I used on the original batch (likely Windsor or Nottingham) but my recent batch I did 5 and 5 with Nottingham and London ESB. I’ve found that if you treat them right, these yeasts can take a big beer down to a low FG and ABV at +/- 10%.
If you don’t want to blend, I’d say rouse the yeast and warm up the fermenter. And/or get a starter going and pitch some fresh yeast. IME you’ll need a big pitch for this to work, and patience.
You could take a portion and cut it with carbonated water to see how that blends. Might end up with something interesting.
When I blend beer it is usually a small amount of concentrated flavorful solution diluted into a larger volume of a weaker one- like 1:12 or more.
I would pull a small sample (like a pint) and add a metric ass ton of yeast to it and see how it attenuates. That will let you know if it is a problem with the mash or the yeast. You need to figure that out before you can begin to address the problem.
How many packets of yeast are there in a Metric Ass-ton? I need to incorportate that measurement into my system. My next R.I.S might just nees a Metric Ass-ton of yeast to ferment properly!
It’s not an exact measurement :) Make sure it is healthy and active though, since the sample is already partially fermented.