yeast for a braggot

[Robintun]

I was planning on making my first braggot as my next batch. I have only made a few batches of both ale and mead, most of which I think have tasted pretty good. I have a few different recipes for the braggot I have found in books, here and other places. I am wanting to make something like what I found in the Compleat Meadmaker using around 10lb of honey and 3lb of malt extract as well as other things for a 5 gallon must. I was wondering about the yeast though. It is being suggested to use one of the typical wine lavlin yeasts, but I was thinking about using an ale yeast. My only concern is that it might not ferment all the sugars as I would expect this recipe to get to about 13%. So I was looking for alcohol tolerances of ale yeast, danstar nottingham in particular, and can not find any numbers. To be honest, my reason to use an ale may be a bit naive; just seems to ferment faster, though I imagine that has something to do with the complexities of the sugars and I like the fruity flavor that is typical of ale yeasts.

Anyway, do anyone know where to find a list of alcohol tolerances for ale yeasts like the list Got Mead has here for the typical mead yeast?

And as an aside question, any suggestions on ensuring a good head producing braggot? I read adding some specialty grains add certain proteins to improve the body of a brew.

 

[Vino]

Disclaimer: I am new to Mead making but for what it’s worth I have been brewing beer for many years. Not sure that qualifies me to give anybody advise.

From the Danstar website: “Nottingham is a great choice for creation of higher-alcohol specialty beers!”

Not sure what your other ingredients are, but based on the 3# (I would recommend 6# minimum) of LME and 10# honey, my rough calculations give you an OG of 1.083, with the Nottingham a high attenuation will be around 80%, which should arrive at a finished ABV of 8.8%...easily within the range of Nottingham yeast…from my own experience I have brewed an ale with Nottingham that finished at 9.8% (too sweet for my taste as it seemed to subdue the hops).

Three notes to consider when using the Nottingham (from the Danstar website)

· For high gravity beers the pitching rate should be increased. The rule of thumb is one million cells per degree Plato per ml. Under-pitching can result in slow or stuck fermentation.

· The pitching rate influences the lag phase and general fermentation speed as well as the flavour of the finished beer. Too low pitching rates will result in longer lag phase and higher risk of contamination as well as longer overall fermentation time. Too high pitching rates speed up the fermentation but can lead to early autolysis.

· Like any yeast, dry beer yeast benefits from additional nutrients. In particular, when brewing high gravity beers or using larger amounts of adjuncts, the wort needs to be supplemented with extra nutrients to ensure optimum yeast performance.

Vino

 

[osluder]

A high-gravity Belgian ale yeast may be interesting, e.g., Belgian Strong Ale or Trappist High Gravity. Those should easily be capable of 12-13% and you'll definitely get the fruity esters.

Wyeast lists all their strains' alcohol tolerances, but as far as I can tell you have to look at the individual data sheets as opposed to a nice summary table.

White Labs lists alcohol tolerance as a range, e.g., High is 10-15%, etc. Again, no nice summary table that I have found. They release a Nottingham yeast as part of their Platinum line (available only in March/April though). That strain is listed as Medium for alcohol tolerance which is 5-10%.