Too Dry IPA & Polymer Piping: Mr Wizard

Dear Mr. Wizard,

I have attempted to make an imperial IPA and added Champagne yeast after primary fermentation to give it some extra kick. The extra kick that I got was more like a kick in the head. The brew is now in the secondary and I can already tell that it is far too dry for my liking. How can I give some malty sweetness back to my brew without starting all over? Is it possible to make a late addition of extract and pray, or will this cause pressure problems when it is transferred to bottles?

Phil Williams
Lock Haven, Pennsylvania

Mr Wizard replies:

Your problem in a nut shell is yeast selection. Champagne yeast is one of those yeast strains that tends to be highly attenuative and creates a very dry finished product. I am not a huge fan of extremely strong beers and typically brew with an original gravity of 18 ºPlato (1.072) or lower. I have never had fermentation problems with these beers using my brewery’s standard ale and lager strains. In fact, we brewed a barleywine last year with an original gravity of 25 ºPlato (1.100) and it fermented to completion with our standard ales yeast without problem.

My point is that I really have never understood why Champagne yeast seems so popular for strong beers. Most brewing strains can ferment strong worts as long as the yeast is healthy and you pitch enough, the importance of which really cannot be stressed enough! Some of the whacked out, super-strong beers being brewed cannot rely on this advice because they are simply too strong for conventional methods. Brewers must do things such as change their yeast strains and slowly feed their fermentations to successfully make their odd tipples. Imperial IPA’s, however, do not fall into this category of beers and the Champagne yeast is not a requirement.

So you have this really dry, fairly bitter beer and wish it had more balance to it. There are several things you can consider here and they involve adding something “sweet” to add back what the Champagne yeast took out. One method I like is adding a different beer and doing a little blending. Blending is a really great tool used by winemakers, distillers and a few brewers to take two or more products whose sum is greater than the individual pieces. When most brewers talk about blending the thought of mixing several batches of the same beer to improve consistency comes to mind. That’s not the kind of blending you need. With this beer you could blend in some sweet stout to create a weird beer that may not have an identifiable style, but may have a satisfying flavor — maybe you could call the concoction Imperial Brown Ale and invent a new style. You could add extract to the beer for sweetness, but you probably would be jumping from the pan into the fire. You might end up wanting to get rid of the worty flavor in your new creation.

Of course both of these methods have one problem — Champagne yeast. If your beer still contains viable Champagne yeast cells, which it probably does and will continue to for quite some time, the added beer or wort will be dried out like your original beer. Depending on the population of viable Champagne yeast this can happen relatively quickly or take a very long time.

This is somewhat of a double-edged sword. If you are able to correct the dryness issue and drink the beer before the Champagne yeast dries it out again, you’ll be in good shape. However, if you bottle your new creation and let it sit around too long, you will begin to see over-carbonated bottles of beer and quite possibility explosions. Kegging your beer and keeping it very cold is a possible alternative to bottling and eliminates the explosion issue. The cold storage tempertures will also slow down the yeast action. I give a lot of answers to a wide array of questions and often discover that the questions I am best equipped to answer relate to problems that I myself have encountered. An experienced and knowledgeable brewer is one who has made his share of mistakes and taken the time to understand what occurred — i.e. they’ve learned their lesson! This process of trial and error can be frustrating at times, but if you have the right attitude it can be one of the best ways to really hone your brewing skills. If I were in your brewery boots I would try to salvage this beer just to gain the experience. If you’re lucky, you’ll end up with a tastier and more gratifying batch of beer!

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Dear Mr. Wizard,

I am looking to expand my homebrewery and was wondering if there are any issues with using CPVC pipes instead of copper to move my wort around. Minus the top service temperature of 200 ºF (93 ºC), are there any other issues that I should be aware of with using CPVC?

Chad Ostram
Genesee Depot, Wisconsin

Mr. Wizard replies:

The most important thing to consider when evaluating materials of construction is product compatibility. CPVC or chlorinated polyvinyl chloride is a heat resistant type of PVC and is rated for continual exposure to water at 190 ºF (88 ºC). The main use for CPVC is hot water lines in new homes. The advantages of this type of piping are that it is easy to cut and “weld” together with liquid PVC bonding agents; it stands up to high temperatures; CPVC is a food-grade polymer; and it stands up to a wide range of brewery cleaning solutions including strong bases like caustic and acids like phosphoric acid.

I prefer rigid piping or tubing, such as copper or stainless steel, for permanently installed wort lines because these lines just feel tougher. With this personal opinion aside, I can’t think of any red flag issues concerning CPVC in the homebrewery other than the obvious — you don’t want to use this plastic with boiling wort as it’s not rated for temperatures that high. Another thing to be mindful of is keeping this material away from the flame under your wort kettle or hot water tank.

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