quick yeast questions...

[sundontlie]

i would like to dry out one of my beers, i'm under the impression the more sugars the yeast eat from your wort the drier your beer will become.. if so, lets say i want a nice dry crisp american pale ale, is there a better way to make sure i can take some of the sweetness out of my homebrew? mine and my friends homebrewed beers are always a touch sweet, even after lengthy secondaries..

will adding another dose of yeast when transferring to the secondary help this? same yeast or different strand?

is having 2 or more strands of yeast in your beer bad?

is it a good idea to use a higher alc% yeast? or will that give wierd flavors? say like a low gravity beer with a champagne yeast?

what yeast could you recommend adding to a clean crisp pale ale to dry it out nice but not too overbearingly?

thanks for your time!

[HogieWan]

if a beer tastes too sweet, add more bittering hops or boil the bitering hops a bit longer.

If I were you, I'd take your favorite recipe and extend the boil (with the bittering addition) by 15 mins.

[sundontlie]

hmmmmm.. i may do that this time. does the yeast thing make sense at all? or am i just crazy? what is it that makes a Cantillon dry you up and pucker your lips? i was under the impression it had something to do with aging + yeast attenuation rather than recipe and the actual brewing process

[corkybstewart]

Cantillon, like all lambics, are brewed using wild yeasts, not normal brewing yeast. If that's the kind of thing you want wyeast and White Labs both have "wild" yeasts. They sell them individually and mixed with other yeasts, depending on the level of sourness you want. I tried this last year and so far it's worked well. Take the dregs of a bottle of Orval, make a small starter and add it at secondary. Then be patient, it takes a while.

[sundontlie]

that makes the most sense out of any of the things i've been dreaming up.. its a perfect compliment.

i'll also try boiling the wort for maybe an extra half hour.

the two ideas combined may add up to what i'm looking for.

Thanks guys!

[dparsons]

High attenuation yeasts and lower mash temperatures. If you do all grain, you can reduce the amount of fermentable sugars by mashing at 145 F or so.