BIG BEER no bubbles

[SweetMoFo]

Hi all,
I brewed a big IPA using US-05, I hand wrote the recipe on the fly and was planning a 90 min boil where I would add hops every 5 mins, this should of given me a nice 8-9% hoppy IPA.

This was my second brew of the day and I drank my way through the first one so writing a recipie for the second with no calculations was probably not the best idea, looking back at it now I realise my mistake. I worked out that 200 grams of hops over 90 mins was 5 grams every 5 mins with 10 grams FWH and 10 in the cube. Many beers later and 3 hours in to the boil I realised my error:wha:

Now instead of adding water to bring the gravity down a bit I just stuck it in a carboy and added some US-05. It started off at 1120 and finished off at 1030 making it 11.9%. I bottled it adding dextrose to carbonate it but 4 weeks on nothing. Tastes great but no carbonation.

It's in swing tops so I was thinking of adding some fresh yeast to see if it helps but I am a bit worried that if I use US-05 again it will do nothing as I read that it only works up to about 12% and if I use a yeast with a higher alcohol tolerance there is still plenty of sugars in there to make some great tasting bombs

Any ideas would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Chris

 

[MyQul]

Perhaps a yeast with a high alcohol tolerance but medium attenuation - If such a yeast exists?

 

[SweetMoFo]

Thanks, that gives me something to work on.

 

[Slid]

Very interesting situation, here. You have a few choices, I guess:

Leave it for year or so, in which case, the hops have lost much of their prescence.

Drink it with carbonated water of some sort, in which case, there was no point brewing it to the strength of a table wine.

Drink it a bit flat - on the grounds that you won't have to put up with drinking too much flat beer at one sitting if it's 11.9%.

Brilliant story BTW - I just love the "3 hours later..." as 5g every 5 mins just has to take as long as 1g every 1 minute. As someone who took distance running very seriously in the past, I can totally relate to just carrying on, even when you know, deep down inside, that something is wrong. Very wrong.

 

[Slid]

Had another thought, over tea.

As a kid, there was product called a Sodastream. You put a cylinder of CO2 on one side and a bottle of cold water plus some sugary, coloured squash on the other. The Sodastream would transfer a measured dose of CO2 into the sugared, coloured water and it would be magically transformed into the elixir of life that is coka cola - or whatever.

That might work and you probably don't need an actual 1970's Sodastream, which is just as well, because I don't think they are available at Wilko's any more.

 

[SweetMoFo]

Love the soda stream idea, not sure if it will work but I'm sure my parents still have the one I used when I was a kid. I remember putting some milk in there once and it pretty much exploded in the machine my mum was not very happy.

On further thought and ideas from another forum I may try putting a few bottles in a demijohn with some champagne yeast and re bottle it after its dropped a few more points.