Mad idea? Use champagne yeast and Crystal Malt?

[allanmb]

I have come up with an idea for making a pale, very strong ale and was going to try making a 1 gallon batch to try it out. However, I thought I would ask to see if someone has already tried/heard of this first.

The idea is to use champagne yeast to extract as much sugars as I can out of some malt, however since this would normally result in a very dry beer, I plan to use some crystal malt which would hopefully retain some sweetness to the beer.

I was thinking something along the lines of 4.5L batch with 300g of Extra Pale Crystal, 700g of brewers sugar and some good champagne yeast. This would give something in the 10.5-11% ABV mark and would be quite pale (~18EBC).

Does this sound like madness? No point? Or worth a try?
Thanks
Allan

[Mr. Dripping]

The champagne yeast will make the beer too dry, far too dry to be pleasant. You will also get 'wine flavours' given off by the yeast.......it's called champagne yeast for a reason
The grain bill is 'unusual' shall we say.......30% malt to 70% sugar.

The strength is determined mainly by the OG rather than trying to ferment out everything that is there.
And....there are plenty of alcohol tolerant ale yeasts that will ferment a beer in the 11% ABV range.

[allanmb]

But my understanding is:

Champagne yeast = dry beer
>10% Crystal Malt = sweet beer

So, by mixing the two, surely there would be a balance? Or would the champagne yeast manage to ferment the Crystal Malt more than an ale yeast?

[Dave S]

I'm with Mr D, doesn't sound at all pleasant to me. I don't think 300 g Crystal will overcome the dry of the sugar and yeast.

[Hanglow]

Most wine yeasts can't ferment maltotriose and are generally bad at fermenting maltose, your best bet would be to ferment it initially with something like notty or us05 then add simple sugar and champagne yeast to really bump up the alcohol

but notty should do an 11% beer on its own i think


edit:
sorry misread the brewers sugar as DME

In your case, then just champagne yeast would be a good idea as it'll chew through all of that but leave the maltose, if a steeped crystal leaves much of it. I don't know if it does


try it, but i suspect it would be minging, but aging it for a year might make it an ok wine

[beer today]

believe my local micro was experimenting with champagne yeast, but don't know any more than that. Nothing ventured nothing gained in my opinion.

[asd]

Some folk use a champagne yeast to bottle condition, but I've never heard of it used in the primary. I say go ahead!

[seymour]

That's not a mad idea, I've done it many times. Mr. Dripping isn't exactly correct, and I'm pretty much just restating Hanglow's response.

Champagne yeast is extremely attenuative yes, and can produce extremely dry-finishing beer if fed lots of simple sugar and highly-fermentable pale malt, as Mr. Dripping stated. But, since it evolved to ferment grape juice, it's not particularly efficient at fermenting complex maltose sugars, particularly caramelized grain-derived melanoidins. That particular handicap is what makes it worthwhile for bottle-conditioning Imperial Stouts, an instance where you obviously want to leave behind a lot of malty complexity. I bottled a cranberry dark mild with Champagne yeast last week. It was FG 1007, dry but not crazy dry, with the complex malts and actual fruit contributing more perceived residual sweetness than you'd think from those number. Some mild ales ferment that low anyway, even with standard English ale yeast. Another quick aside: in my experience, the Adnams dual-strain and the Ringwood dual-strain are English ale yeasts capable of fermenting even drier than Champagne yeast can, all things being equal.

So yes, allanmb, it will work something like you propose. Try it and see for yourself. It will be dryer than you're used to with malty English ales, but not so extremely dry as to be considered a flaw, per se, especially if you rack it when it gets to your desired final gravity and serve through it fresh.

It all depends on what you're going for. I'll freely admit I did it as a weird one-off holiday-themed Julol. No standard English ale grainbill fermented with Champagne yeast will ever be nearly as flavourful as one with real English ale yeast.

[allanmb]

Sounds like a split vote so I think I will go ahead and try it. There is not much to lose with such a small batch. I am going to use only Simcoe to brew this batch too as it is one of my favourite hops and I have a fresh bag which I will be using for my festive ale.

Does my ratio of crystal to sugar sound ok? 300g crystal / 700g sugar. Or do you think I should use a different ratio? Or perhaps less sugar and use some extra pale DME?

[seymour]

Sounds like a split vote so I think I will go ahead and try it. There is not much to lose with such a small batch. I am going to use only Simcoe to brew this batch too as it is one of my favourite hops and I have a fresh bag which I will be using for my festive ale.

Does my ratio of crystal to sugar sound ok? 300g crystal / 700g sugar. Or do you think I should use a different ratio? Or perhaps less sugar and use some extra pale DME?

You definitely need some pale base grain. Crystal malt by itself does not a beer make, think of it as an adjunct ingredient not the whole recipe.

[MTW]

What about a saison yeast?

[allanmb]

Sounds like a split vote so I think I will go ahead and try it. There is not much to lose with such a small batch. I am going to use only Simcoe to brew this batch too as it is one of my favourite hops and I have a fresh bag which I will be using for my festive ale.

Does my ratio of crystal to sugar sound ok? 300g crystal / 700g sugar. Or do you think I should use a different ratio? Or perhaps less sugar and use some extra pale DME?

You definitely need some pale base grain. Crystal malt by itself does not a beer make, think of it as an adjunct ingredient not the whole recipe.

After some feedback I was considering using something along the lines of 300g crystal, 500g Medium DME and using a normal ale yeast. Then adding 400-500g or so of sugar and pitching the champagne yeast. That should retain some maltiness, and give a whopping strength, >12%. I am aware this is probably entering barley wine territory but I like to experiment Any thoughts?

[far9410]

Sounds like a split vote so I think I will go ahead and try it. There is not much to lose with such a small batch. I am going to use only Simcoe to brew this batch too as it is one of my favourite hops and I have a fresh bag which I will be using for my festive ale.

Does my ratio of crystal to sugar sound ok? 300g crystal / 700g sugar. Or do you think I should use a different ratio? Or perhaps less sugar and use some extra pale DME?

You definitely need some pale base grain. Crystal malt by itself does not a beer make, think of it as an adjunct ingredient not the whole recipe.

After some feedback I was considering using something along the lines of 300g crystal, 500g Medium DME and using a normal ale yeast. Then adding 400-500g or so of sugar and pitching the champagne yeast. That should retain some maltiness, and give a whopping strength, >12%. I am aware this is probably entering barley wine territory but I like to experiment Any thoughts?

Its a crazy idea, go for it and report back!

[keith1664]

What about a saison yeast?

I was wondering this, I did a saison recently with WLP566 which ended up at 1.003 and that was all malt.
Whichever yeast is used I'm not entirely sure that I'd want to drink too much of the end result.

[timothy]

Good call substituting some DME for the sugar. That should help substantially make this taste more like beer and not just flavorless alcohol pseudo wine-beer. I'm all about experimentation though so I say go for it. Interested to see how this turns out.