Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale

I started reading some online forums and John Palmers ‘How To Brew’ and now I’m second guessing myself.

Yesterday was brew day. This is only my second batch, so bare with me. I went with a Bourbon Barrel Ale kit found here http://www.midwestsupplies.com/catalog/product/view/id/1401/s/bourbon-barrel-old-ale/category/37/.  I used one packet of Safale-04 dry ale yeast. I don't know if I took the hydrometer reading wrong, but my beginning gravity was 1.097! It’s supposed to be high gravity, but dang.

The airlock is bubbling just fine today, but I'm a little concerned after reading a bit more about high alcohol beers. I came across several documents that explained the necessity of adding more yeast than the typical one pack of dry yeast and/or adding yeast nutrients to compensate for the high alcohol. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?  Should I toss in another pack of rehydrated yeast and some nutrients into the primary or might this compromise my beer somehow?

Any suggestions are appreciated.

One reason why we pitch more yeast into higher gravity wort is that there are more sugars in the wort to consume.  If you do not pitch a larger yeast concentration, than the initial yeast pitch must grow large enough to handle the sugar load.  This stresses the yeast, which can lead to off-flavors like higher alcohols (think the burning sensation you get in the throat when drinking hard liquor).  It can also lead to incomplete fermentation, where the yeast population cannot get through all the sugars and you end up with a higher-than-expected final gravity.

Most of the off-flavors, if any, will have been created at this point, as the yeast growth phase happens in the first 24 hours.  So, I would wait and see how things play out.  Check your final gravity, when the yeast is finished, and if it is too high, you might need to make a healthy starter (actively fermenting yeast colony) and add that and hope it pulls the gravity down.  Just sprinkling more dry yeast on the beer will likely not due much, given the high alcohol level of the beer.

I hope that helps,

Tom