How high a specific gravity can you start fermenting at?

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How high a specific gravity can you start fermenting at?

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jema
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
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Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 05 7:13 am Post subject: How high a specific gravity can you start fermenting at?

I recently started some Rose Petal off at 1108 and I was pleased to see it started fine.

Yet I still from time to time see suggestions that fermentation is unlikely to start above say the 1080-1090 mark. Along with suggestions for feed wine with suger sryrup as the gravity falls.

I wonder if all of this was true 30 years ago, but in reality the yeasts available are now far more robust and need none of this care and attention?

Certainly the high alcohol yeasts like Alcotec, say little more on their instructions than throw it into a bucket of suger and watch it explode, and in aweek you will have 20% alcohol by volume

sean
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
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Location: North Devon

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 05 7:23 am Post subject:
I think that if you start at a very high O.G. then fermentation tends to be very slow. For example Quintarelli, who is a small scale producer of recioto and amarone, often has fermentations lasting two to three years.

jema
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
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Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 05 7:42 am Post subject:

sean wrote:

I think that if you start at a very high O.G. then fermentation tends to be very slow. For example Quintarelli, who is a small scale producer of recioto and amarone, often has fermentations lasting two to three years.

Well my rose petal has started off anything but slow. As they tail off you would expect them to be slow as the yeast struggles against the rising alcohol level.

It would be interesting to see a chart mapping OG against time taken to ferment out. I imagine it would be fairly exponential in nature.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 05 8:14 am Post subject:

Depends a great deal on the yeast; a champagne yeast starts like the clappers, but you may find that other yeasts are a bit more relaxed. Take elderberries, for example, and make the wine with wild yeasts on the berries; I doubt they'd have got going terribly fast with such a high specific gravity as you just used!

Remember also that when we add a teaspoonfull of yeast to a gallon (or three gallons, even five) we're adding a LOT of yeast cells. That's to make it start and go fast, and to give the yeast the best chance it has of out-competing everything else. With so many cells there, they'll ferment practically anything.

Blue Peter

Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 2400
Location: Milton Keynes

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 05 10:16 am Post subject: High gravity beers
I regularly start beers at 1100+. However using Safale04 yeast, I do sometimes have problems with attenuation, Peter.

jema
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28244
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 05 10:20 am Post subject: Re: High gravity beers

PeterHiett wrote:

I regularly start beers at 1100+. However using Safale04 yeast, I do sometimes have problems with attenuation,

Peter.

That's a strong beer

Pretty much at the peak end of what is suggested for Barely wine.

Blue Peter

Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 2400
Location: Milton Keynes

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 05 10:36 am Post subject: Beer or barley bine?
Yes, like a barley wine, though sometimes I do stouts (to hide the imperfections of my technique ). Certainly you don't drink pints of it, hic! Peter.

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