Yeast question

[hvac36]

Ok ordered some juices from finger lakes. Have niagra juice coming and want this to finish sweet with out and f-pack so back sweeting will not be an option here. Need a yeast that will kill it self say around 12-14% alco this way I can start with a sweeter must and and end up with sugar left over.

 

[DoctorCAD]

It really doesn't work that way. If you over-sugar too much, the yeast just won't work. For a home winery, back sweetening is normal. Commercial wineries can cold crash and sterile filter, you can't.

You might try a beer yeast. It might change the flavor, though.

 

[Julie]

why don't you want to backsweeten? Backsweeten does not mean you have to use an f-pac. I seldom to that, take a couple of cups of wine warm that up and add your sugar, still until dissolved and pour back into your wine.

 

[hvac36]

It really doesn't work that way. If you over-sugar too much, the yeast just won't work. For a home winery, back sweetening is normal. Commercial wineries can cold crash and sterile filter, you can't.

You might try a beer yeast. It might change the flavor, though.

Why can't we sterile filter? $400 I can buy the superjet filter with sterile filters.
I have a 3ton glycol chiller so cold crashing is also not an issue.

Yeast does have a tolerance level of alcohol they can tolerate. Prelude yeast can tolerate about a 9.0% alcohol, fermichamp can go as high as 17.0%.

I posted this question to see who knows what about yeast most know that what it does for flavors, aromas etc but not how it can be used. If you get a low tolerance yeast and you try and go about that tolerance level you kill the yeast. Same as doing a port wine you raise alcohol lever you kill yeast with no chance of it refermenting with higher sugar levels... What I'm saying is learn what your yeast are capable of doing and not doing.

 

[seth8530]

One of the issues being when you press a yeast too hard, is that it starts releasing a lot of unpleasant flavours into the wine. Something to watch out for. Also, a yeast rated for 14% can and sometimes will go up to 16% or it could stall out at 12%.. Not saying its not possible to do what you want, but I believe you are going at it the hard way.

 

[hvac36]

One of the issues being when you press a yeast too hard, is that it starts releasing a lot of unpleasant flavours into the wine. Something to watch out for. Also, a yeast rated for 14% can and sometimes will go up to 16% or it could stall out at 12%.. Not saying its not possible to do what you want, but I believe you are going at it the hard way.

But if you keep ur yeast happy during ferment all will be good in the end. Not saying something can go wrong. You are correct in the +/- but 1% either way is not and issue.

 

[Deezil]

I would go with 1122

Ferment cold, long and slow; dont let the fermentation build up speed, dont let the yeast numbers get out of control.

Cold crash if you can, then separate the lees
Dose with sulfite & keep your eye on it

I've accidentally stalled batches by just racking off the lees too soon, without stirring. The wine dropped another 0.002-0.005 and then stopped.

You'll want to watch your yeast nutrient additions too - too much food and they wont stop unless you sterile filter..

It's more than just yeast, to get this to work, but I imagine you know that if you have glycol chillers and such

 

[seth8530]

Right, but I do not think it should be unexpected to find off flavours as you near the alcohol tolerance of your yeast and even push past it. IE too much alcohol might lead to stressed out angry yeast making angry flavours.

Not that I am saying it is an awfull idea, you just want to approach this from the right direction.

 

[garymc]

You can go to the Lalvin and Red Star web sites and they have a description of each strain of yeast they sell which includes alcohol tolerance. I think they also have charts that list the properties of the various strains, facilitating comparison.

 

[garymc]

Seth, if stressed out angry yeast gives off bad flavors, is it happy when it starves to death and dies as the last of the sugar is consumed?

 

[ShawnDTurner]

I've in the past stopped a fermentation at 1.020 with a mead I was making. I racked, then added Sorbate and k-meta. I waited a week to see if it kicked back up, it did not. This mead is now 3 years old in bottle. I was using I was using a Mead yeast from Wyeast, cant remember which one. Cheers!

 

[hvac36]

There are so many more suppliers of yeast then RedStar an Lalvin out there. Yes you may have to buy in bigger batches like 500grams at a time (that's 1lbs) but I just freeze it.
Also filters even if you use the whole house filter they make a sterile filter for that as well. As for chilling the wine you don't need a glycol chiller to do this there are ways of doing it without it, use an old freezer with a Johnson control.
I just trying to open folks eyes here you do not have to back sweeten your wines will turn out 100% better using natural sugar from the grapes.
Just make sure you follow sanitary cleaning check your so2 levels etc and you will have amazing wines.

 

[seth8530]

Seth, if stressed out angry yeast gives off bad flavors, is it happy when it starves to death and dies as the last of the sugar is consumed?

I was under the impression that it goes dormant instead of dying out. Kind of like how the yeast in your yeast packet does not have a sugar supply to munch on while it is in its foil wrapper.

This also would explain why adding sugar to a wine that has been dry for months more often than not results in renewed fermentation.

 

[hvac36]

I was under the impression that it goes dormant instead of dying out. Kind of like how the yeast in your yeast packet does not have a sugar supply to munch on while it is in its foil wrapper.

This also would explain why adding sugar to a wine that has been dry for months more often than not results in renewed fermentation.

Seth, yeast in a package is dehydrated and sleeping yeast in a must or wine will die that is the reason we find them at the bottom or the carboys yes some will sleep until they find other sugars this is why we add sorb ate and k to are wines to keep them there along with filtering. We as wine makers control what the yeast does,not the other way around. Control the yeast and all will be amazing.

 

[seth8530]

What makes you so sure that the yeast is actually going through a massive die out as the sugar runs out? I spent the past 20 or so minutes looking for some good information on the later end of the yeast life cycle and everything I have seen seems to imply it just goes dormant, just like how the yeast from the packets is dormant.

I agree that as wine makers we do our best to control the yeast, but it is really hard to predict exactly what the yeast will do every single time. We can control many things to guide the yeast in a direction that we want them to go in though.

 

[hvac36]

Like I said most of the yeast will die an fall to the bottom. Some will go dormant, it takes 1 yeast cell to start a ferment all over again. So this is where the sorbate an k come in.
But we have other ways to also control them. Cold and filtering. In order to make the best wines we need to control them and use the correct yeast for the job this way no off odors or flavors will be added to are wines.

 

[hvac36]

Quick link

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2000-02/950251178.Cb.r.html

 

[Julie]

Well I think Seth said it best, try to control the yeast not predict and that is what you are trying to do. The yeast tolerance is not set in stone. And trying to control when a fermentation will stop is a gamble. If you are good at it, I'm sure you can do this a number of times but the bottom line is, it is a gamble! Not all winemakers have or choose to sterile filter their wines but this does not mean they are wrong or a bad winemaker. That is just a choice some do.

Each yeast will bring it's own charteristics to a wine, I have never known a yeast to create an off odor or flavor to a wine, it is preferable to use a specific yeast on a specific wine, such has a fruit wine and 71b 1122 but if I choose to use 1118 my wine will not have off odors or flavor.