As I brought up in another thread, I’ve given up hope that my Weizenbock will be carbed in it’s current state and I’m pretty sure it’s due to the yeast refusing to finish the job. The recipe from BCS called for some 12lbs of LME. It finished at 1.030 and I used 5.2oz of corn sugar to prime 5 gallons for carbonation. I’m thinking about throwing a couple of granules of US-05 in a few of the bottles as sort of a test run.
My concern is, will US-05 also drop the gravity (which would be good but) too much to the point that it would cause bottle bombs?
You need to test before trying it on the whole batch. Pour 2-3 bottles into a jar, add some yeast and see what happens. You should be able to measure what FG the test sample gets to, and that will tell you if the bottle bomb scare is real.
How much alcohol is in this beer? Could the yeast have reached it’s limit?
That’s something I didn’t consider. It’s at about 7% now. White Labs site says it’s alcohol tolerance is “medium”. I would think this strain would be able to withstand a little higher than 7%.
Do you suggest against trying it on a couple bottles and storing them in a cooler for a couple weeks?
Sorry, guess I wasn’t too clear. I bottled this two months ago. It’s drinkable but it’s pretty cloying and undercarbed. I was hoping to drop some 05 in the bottles and hoping it dry it out and increase carbonation.
[quote=“dobe12”]“Medium”??? Well that’s not helpful at all. I’m a Wyeast fan and rarely use White Labs. Is that how they list the alcohol tolerance… Medium?
EDIT: Not knowing what “medium” means… I’d still think that yeast could handle 7% ABV.[/quote]
I agree. Most ale yeast can reach 8-10%, but if the yeast wasn’t healthy to start, it could stop short. Did you make a starter?
[quote=“rebuiltcellars”][quote=“dobe12”]“Medium”??? Well that’s not helpful at all. I’m a Wyeast fan and rarely use White Labs. Is that how they list the alcohol tolerance… Medium?
EDIT: Not knowing what “medium” means… I’d still think that yeast could handle 7% ABV.[/quote]
I agree. Most ale yeast can reach 8-10%, but if the yeast wasn’t healthy to start, it could stop short. Did you make a starter?[/quote]
I made a 2 step starter because the date on the yeast was pretty old (2 months). 1.5L on the stir plate, chilled/decanted, another 1.5L of wort on the stir plate, chilled/decanted, and pitched.
If I were you, the first thing I would try would be to pour a couple of bottles of the beer into some sanitized plastic bottles, reyeast and see what happens. If it doesn’t work not much lost, if you get bombs they’re in plastic. I don’t think that there will be enough of a fermentation in a bottle to make any difference in the sweetness, however.
I’m with you on the bottling woes, though. I’ve had my fair share of undercarbed and overcarbed, wish I had the space and money for a kegging system.
[quote=“rebuiltcellars”]I dream of getting yeast packs that are only two months old
But it doesn’t sound like yeast health was the cause of your problem.[/quote]
I read this and thought “where the hell do you live”. Then I looked, Finland. That sucks… not the Finland part, but the old yeast part. If I go to one of the 3 LHBS within 20min of my house, I rarely find a yeast that’s over a month old.
[quote=“dobe12”][quote=“rebuiltcellars”]I dream of getting yeast packs that are only two months old
But it doesn’t sound like yeast health was the cause of your problem.[/quote]
I read this and thought “where the hell do you live”. Then I looked, Finland. That sucks… not the Finland part, but the old yeast part. If I go to one of the 3 LHBS within 20min of my house, I rarely find a yeast that’s over a month old.[/quote]
I know. Didn’t realized how spoiled I was when I was living in the US until I tried getting supplies over here. It’s gotten better in the last year; my LHBS now gets direct shipments from Wyeast 2-3 times per year. So I did one time manage to get yeast that was only a month old.
In case anyone is curious I cracked open 6 of these on Saturday and put a pinch of US-05 in each one and sealed them back up. Put them in a mini cooler and put that in my ferm chamber to keep it at a nice and toasty 67. I’ll check them in a couple of weeks and let you know. If this works ill probably do the same with the rest of the bottles.
