So, I fell asleep....during a boil

[Zorco]

It was a little nap, nothing less than 15 minutes and probably no longer than 3 hours. But suffice it to say... My 48 litres of 1068 wort danced its luscious dance till I upgraded my conscious state to 'functional' and turned everything off.

Now, before the H&S committee have a tanty just remember everything was safe - I wasn't wearing pants.

Morning now and I re boil my wort to sanitise and drain to a cube... All 16 litres of it.

The refrac was useless and the hydrometer almost floated sideways. It was maybe 50mm below the maximum reading.... Well into the bulb.

My immediate thought was: hey, I've got that white labs super high gravity yeast!


Enter you guys. What sort of battle am I about to undertake? The mash was at 64.5 so I think the sugars are highly fermentable.

I made myself a stir plate and have a big flask so a huge starter is possible. I have plenty of oxygen left.

I know that the yeast needs some managing, gradual additions of wort plus other tricks.

But I might be shooting off course in this new world. Maybe viscosity will impede the yeast.


Looking forward to planning this adventure!

Cheers

 

[Killer Brew]

Not a hoppy beer so could dilute it quite a bit?

 

[SBOB]

so you boiled 48L of 1.068 down to 16L? New Gravity: 1.144?

why not just water it back down to a useable gravity?

 

[mtb]

Whoa mate.. you made extract!

Assuming the 1.068 was original gravity (after boil) and 48L was pre-boil volume? So 1.058 pre-boil gravity.
Fiddling with the boil time in Beersmith's Boil Off calculator, if it's 16L and assuming a bunch of factors, gravity is 1.165

 

[dblunn]

Yep, just water it down to a reasonable volume/gravity. The low finishing volume may have a detrimental affect on the hop utilisation resulting in a lower IBU than expected but the longer boil time could have increased the bitterness! Let us know which way it turned out, and don't panic (or the Oz version - keep your pants on mate).
Dave

 

[Zorco]

Definitely could dilute, but I would acknowledge that as reversing my progress.

Now that I'm here, I would like to commit to this direction. I've spent the gas after all.

I would guess this has been done deliberately before? JiggaWatt RIS?

I don't mind paying for the loss and dumping it at the end as long as I gained a lot of learning from it. Best outcome is a 22% beer which is phenomenal.... Don't know how to achieve that yet though.

 

[Danscraftbeer]

Your own Goop! There are so many options you can do. It would make for good Barley Wine with a little dilution.

 

[Zorco]

Whoa mate.. you made extract!

Assuming the 1.068 was original gravity (after boil) and 48L was pre-boil volume? So 1.058 pre-boil gravity.
Fiddling with the boil time in Beersmith's Boil Off calculator, if it's 16L and assuming a bunch of factors, gravity is 1.165

68 pre. She was that high from the mash tun.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

On that basis I get a current wort strength of 44.3 oP. Assuming 75% fermentablity you'd get almost 22% ABV if there was yeast in the world that would handle that.

I know of none.

 

[Zorco]

White Labs Super High Gravity has it listed as 25%.

I don't know the conditions that would support such an accomplishment though

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

I'd treat it like a stuck ferment: dilute a litre or so by 50%, get that to high krausen then add a couple of litres of undiluted, get that going then add another 4 litres, get that get going then add the rest.

The stuff at 44 oP should be fine for the few days this takes, there's not a lot that can eat it.

It's not the viscosity that hurts the yeast, it's the osmotic pressure. If you dilute to relieve the pressure and get everything started then gradually acclimatise the yeast you have the best chance of success.

 

[Zorco]

Oxygenate as per standard worts?

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

Oxygenate the wort to be added before each addition. Your sugar level might be high enough to reduce the solubility of oxygen but I'll have to check that.

 

[Zorco]

Also, 'when' it goes wrong and stops fermenting at 1090, can I use another two or so vials to restart fermentation?

What other recovery options are there?

I think I may be forced to use only this strain of yeast.

Does ethanol disable yeast on contact? Or can Yeast ferment for a period of time before being overcome?

 

[yurgy]

long boil caramilization goodness.dilute 50% ferment then eisbier it and forcecarb.

 

[Mardoo]

You'll need to pitch that sucker onto a massive cake of the SHG. In the meantime, you'll need to grow up another cake of the SHG to have in reserve, and keep it healthy. Snowballs chance in hell of a vial or two doing anything when it stalls. SHG can also look like its stalled, but just go into a slow growth mode.

According to one of the Brew Strong shows the SHG is an old barley wine yeast that has very thick cell walls, so extra nutrient and oxygenation will be necessary to make sure it has the resources to build those ramparts.

 

[technobabble66]

FWIW, i regularly make a brew to target 25-27L into the FV, but boil it down to 21L to squeeze into a cube.
After the cube is emptied into the FV, i'll flush the cube with some tap water, then fill the FV up with more water to the target Volume/SG.

So far, always worked out fine.

So maybe heavily consider the dilution option, even if it's just to get it down to a more manageable crazy-high SG.

2c

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

Does ethanol disable yeast on contact? Or can Yeast ferment for a period of time before being overcome?

Alcohol basically works by knocking the cell wall lipids about so the structure of the cell wall is damaged, including the enzymatic machinery needed to transport nutrients into the cell. At extreme levels the contents of the cell leak out.

 

[Blind Dog]

WLP099 is supposedly the yeast used for Thomas Hardy's Ale. As that's brewed to around 12%, but the beer finishes around 1.025, I have my doubts.

I was going to add some comments on how you might get the yeast to chew through such s high gravity wort, but I've never gone much past 10% so I'd just be regurgitating stuff I've read but never done, so I won't. If you had a pre-boil wort of 1.068, presumably you were aiming for a pretty big beer anyway, so if it were me I'd go with LC's suggestions above, maybe read the reviews on the whitelabs website for other tips, and just do it. if it's actually is the Thomas Hardy yeast, it'll keep chewing away for a long time much like other UK cask yeasts (TH is not a cask ale, afaik, but the vats it is aged in are really just bloody big casks)

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

OK, did a bit of reading and as I suspected the O2 solubility will be much lower than normal, probably about half.