0-2 & Champagne Yeast

Heard through the grapevine that neither of my two entries into the 2009 Big Beers, Belgians & Barleywines Festival Homebrew Competition in Vail, CO placed in their respective categories. I entered the Old Ale that has been showing recent success at a number of competitions as well as the first sticke altbier that I brewed. I had a bit of hope for the Old Ale doing well and was not surprised whatsoever about the sticke. In fact, I really just entered the sticke because I was looking for unbiased constructive feedback. Ah well. Perhaps the third time, next year's competition, will be the charm?

Speaking of the sticke, my second version of the beer (brewed 9 days ago) is still bubbling away happily at 65 degrees. Before I go on, a quick back story.

I received a bit of inspiration on trying to dry out the sticke a touch while reading Extreme Brewing by Sam Calagione. (I felt the first version was too sweet...we'll see if competition comments reflect this sentiment. FG 1.022) Well, I guess technically, reading Sam's directions for making an extreme barleywine made me recall the instructions provided with the first barleywine I ever brewed.

An online supply store, Homebrew Heaven, offered an extract beer kit called Death By Barleywine. As I recall, a decent enough barleywine. But what was unusual to me (as a newbie brewer) about the kit was that after active primary fermentation was over with whatever strain of typical beer yeast came with the kit, champagne yeast was supposed to be added to the beer. The general thought is that beer yeast sputter out when dealing with such big beers and can't totally complete the fermentation process. This leaves a sweet beer or off flavors behind. Champagne yeast has a significantly higher alcohol tolerance and can munch through quite a bit more than your typical beer yeasts.

In Sam's barleywine recipe, he too mentioned using champagne yeast after 4- 5 days of primary fermentation. Presumably to achieve the same goal of helping to fully ferment the beer. He never addresses specifically why he uses it. I had forgotten that I once used this method and it never occurred to me, until reading through Extreme Brewing, that it may be worth a shot doing it with the sticke.

So to continue with the story, unfortunately, due to a scheduled trip to Tahoe on Thursday, I couldn't really wait to pitch my champagne yeast a full five days after pitching my beer yeast. I had to pitch Thursday morning before heading out, whether the sticke was ready for it or not.

Lake Tahoe at sunrise 01.11.09:


When I got home Sunday afternoon, substantial fermentation activity was noted in the airlock. The temperature of the beer was 65 degrees and everything appeared fine. Hopefully the slightly early pitching of the champagne yeast doesn't adversely affect anything. Even better would be if it accomplishes what I hope it will!

Oh, and I should point out that brewers seem to disagree about whether or not champagne yeast really makes much of a difference when used in this manner. With the quality of today's beer yeasts, especially the highly alcohol tolerant strains, champagne yeast can be viewed as unnecessary provided you aerate your wort sufficiently ahead of time and pitch the proper amount of beer yeast.

I guess we'll see.

Cheers.