I am wanting to try Lalvin EC 1118 yeast in a Barley Wine approximately 5 gallons at 1.100 OG. Has anyone used EC 1118 in a Barley Wine, and if so, how much yeast would you recommend? 1 x 5gm pkg or 2 x 5gm pkg. or more for Pitch Rate? Seems there are many online who have used it with good results, but can’t find any indication of recommended Pitch Rate. Thank you.
Lalvin EC 1118 is a wine yeast. Generally speaking, wine yeasts aren’t as good at utilizing the longer chain sugars that you get in beer wort — they’ve been “bred” to expect a lot of simple fruit sugars like you find in grape must. I suspect you’d get a very high final gravity if you tried EC 1118 in a typical barleywine recipe.
I think what you want is a beer yeast with a decently high alcohol tolerance and a neutral or British ester profile.
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AFAIK, 1118 has difficulty fermenting maltotriose. There are lots of beer yeasts that work great for BW.
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what others said about the maltotriose etc.
i have fermente a lot of high gravity beers using dry yeasts, and IMHO two things:
- it is tempting to go high but try to keep the OG no higher than 1.100
- IMHO use 3 packs for something between 1.09 and 1.10 - it’s a small additional investment to ensure a good fermentation in a relatively expensive beer.
i’ve had good luck with BRY97, BE256, lallemand abbaye for very strong beers like this as they all attenuate nicely enough so you dont end up with some ultra sweet unattenuated end beer,
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