Bottle conditioning when you pushed the yeast too far...

[Mr. No-Tip]

I made a Belgian Golden Strong a while back with WLP545 Belgian Strong Ale. Not the perfect yeast for the style (I picked up the wrong one in haste!), but still appropriate gravity and fermentation wise.

I pitched into 1.071 at 18 and ramped up to 22 over a few days. It seemed to slow considerably in the teens, so I ramped it to 25 and gave it a stir.

The thing ended up at 1.004. That's a 96% apparent attenuation. Pretty ridiculous and 2% beyond the stated viability of the yeast. I have been burnt by this very issue with an IIPA before, but given this was a virulent Belgian, I thought it would be ok.

After three weeks, the bottles are barely carbonated. I wouldn't expect the beer to be drinkable by now, but I'd expect at least a decent spritz. If it doesn't move in the next couple weeks, I am going to call it dead.

So, what to do? (I know there are some google results, but I like the conversation)

I can chill and carefully decant to a keg, but there's some unfermented carbonation drops that I'd rather not leave behind. So that leaves adding some yeast to each bottle. I'd first thought of getting some fresh or started WLP099 and adding that, but my usual suppliers are dry of that at the moment. I don't see a wyeast parallel at craftbrewer. Champagne yeast could be a go, but I've never really looked into that too much. I've heard mixed advice as to whether it's actually any good to dry beers out, for instance.

If I do use dried champagne, should I start it, or just add a few drops to each bottle?

 

[manticle]

When I've made sours or dark strongs that have been aged for a good length of time, I've always added a touch of high alcohol tolerant yeast to the priming bucket.

In your case, it's a tad more difficult as you've already bottled but I have successfully added sugar to underprimed bottles before so it shouldn't be too different. I wouldn't be decanting to a keg - I think you'll oxidise the beer.

It might just be that the yeast is slow - if you are getting some carb, it might just need time. If I were in your situation, I would be inclined to wait. However you could always take 3- 5 bottles and add one lot of active starter to one, one lot of something like belle saison to another and your champagne yeast to another. See what happens, mark the bottles (obviously) and dose the rest with the best performing yeast.

 

[barls]

for my barley wines ive always used ec1118. works fine in up to 15% with no flavour impact.

 

[Mr. No-Tip]

I decided to move the bottles out of the linen cupboard (~12-15 in a Canberra Autumn, I reckon) and into the fermenting fridge at 20. Tipped the bottles every couple days and after a week, I think we're all good. The PETs are well hard and I'm assuming the champagne bottles are the same.

A much better outcome than opening and innoculating each bottle. As usual, probably impatience on my part!