yeast alcohol tolerance question

[wjkelley]

Hello again,

I've recently got my friend into making homemade wine and he has started to use regular bread yeast instead of specialized wine yeast like I have bought. I told him that bread yeast doesn't have a very high alcohol tolerance. Is this true and if so do any of you know exactly how much tolerance it has?

 

[Luc]

I have used Bakers yeast regularly during winemaking and over a period of several years.

I made a test wine in 2 batches. One batc with wine yeast and one with bakers yeast.
Indeed there were differences but both wines were great !!!

Alcohol tolerance level for that wine was 10.4%

But later on I had collegeues making wine with bakers yeast going up to 14%.
I never reached that level myself as I do not think most wines will benefit of an alcohhol level above 11%.

You can re-read the entire story here:
http://wijnmaker.blogspot.com/2010/10/bakkersgist-baking-yeast.html

Luc

 

[pkeeler]

I always thought the problem with bread yeast was that it did not flocculate well. Not that it couldn't ferment. I don't know if flocculation is important in wine making. It certainly would not be if you filter or use finings to settle the yeast out. It is also possible that what they sell now as bread yeast is the same thing they sell as beer yeast. Or the technological and scientific knowledge that has made beer and wine yeasts so much better over the past 30 years has rubbed off onto bread yeasts.

 

[djrockinsteve]

I have been working on a yeast tutorial recently. It is still under construction so to speak but several yeasts and their tolerances are listed.

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12160

the link

 

[Amin]

it actually flocculate like regular wine yeast just slower, if you want rush it i suggest put it in fridge fr a day or 2 they drop like cold fellas in bottom of your demijohn

 

[Kpassa]

I do my 2 gallon test batches with Red Star Platinum baking yeast that I bought in my supermarket's closeout section for 69 cents per 3 pack. I can say this yeast makes wine that kicks like a mule and once it reacted so vigorously my batch overflowed like a volcano. Next time I make a batch I will check it with a hydrometer to get some exact readings.

 

[Turock]

Remember ,too, that's it not just about alcohol tolerance altho you certainly should know what it is when designing your wine and what yeast to use. But yeast that's sold for wine are cultures that were found in the vineyards around the world and chosen to culture and sell because they had nice flavors and nuances in their characteristics. And choice of yeast can also be important when fermenting high malic acid fruit. So there is more to this than just alcohol tolerance. You should try some of the wine yeasts and compare--it doesn't take long to convince you that the wine cultures really add nice notes to your wine.