Alcohol tolerance of wine yeast.

[SpudtheBinx]

Hi, I have a sachet of wilko gervin universal wine yeast. On the website it says it is formulated for high alcohol but no mention of what high alcohol is. Does anyone know how high this stuff will go? Are we looking at 15%, 10%?

Cheers

[Delmonteman]

Over 15 I'd say. Probably 18 if not more with some tlc. I wouldnt go that high though unless you have a recipe to suit.

[fatbloke]

Wilkos ? Or gervin ? Or just gervin yeast purchased at wilkos ?

Because there's info out there for the actual gervin stuff AFAIK, but once it starts getting "generic" i.e. high alcohol you lose data/detail....

[SpudtheBinx]

It's Wilkos branded Gervin universal wine yeast. I will probably go to 15% then, the main thing is alcohol content for this brew.

[cpfan]

Not trying to pick on Wilkos or Gervin, but why not go with Lalvin EC-1118 which is supposedly good to 18%. For many people, it's the generic yeast of choice (especially wine kit companies).

As I finished this, I wondered if the Gervin universal wine yeast is a clone (or whatever) of EC-1118.

Steve

[Cellar_Rat]

Another way of looking at it - what are you trying to make?

[SleepyDave]

I wondered if the Gervin universal wine yeast is a clone (or whatever) of EC-1118.

From my notes (from elsewhere on this site and orignally, I think, from Jack Kellers excellent site) Lalvin EC-1118 (Prise de Mousse) is the same as Gervin No.3 but Lalvin K1V-1116 (Montpellier), which is the same as Gervin Varietal 'E', is capable of tolerating up to 20%.

There are some other high alcohol yeasts out there advertised as capable of tolerating even higher levels if you check out some of the on-line suppliers.

[SpudtheBinx]

I bought the wilkos stuff because that's all wilkos had, I don't want to be hunting all over the place for what is an experiment. I am trying to make something that approximates to vodka but obviously I won't get anywhere near the strength of the real thing. Once it is done I will blend it with some grape concentrate to see how it turns out. I appreciate this is not the best way to go about it, but I value making mistakes to learn from

[fatbloke]

Well that prompted me to look as I'd never heard of a Gervin "Universal" wine yeast. They always used to have a number, label colour and type......

Only to find that it would seem that Gervin "universal" wine yeast, is now numbered as GV1 and has a claimed tolerance of 14% ABV.......

Though, IMO, if Gervin or the owners Muntons are now being even more tight fisted with the info and data they publish about their products ("W"anchors), then yet another reason not to use them if at all possible.

I'm quite happy mail ordering any Lalvin yeasts, as they DO publish plenty of data/info about their yeasts (and no, I refuse to just jump on the EC-1118 band wagon - it blows too many volatile aromatics straight out the airlock. A good yeast ? yes, but for doing what it's intended to do i.e. make bland tasting, higher alcohol whites).

A better so called "general purpose" IMO is their K1-V1116 which will do all of the things EC-1118 does pretty much, but doesn't kill off the aromatics etc.....

[cpfan]

To make a vodka-like product, I would suggest a Turbo Yeast or Distillers Yeast. A common source of these two products is Strand in Sweden (http://www.partyman.se/). I don't know if retailers in the UK carry these products. Strand recommends treating with activated charcoal to remove off-tastes produced by this.

I have made the Prestige Turbo Yeast a few times (getting about 20% alcohol), but not in a few years. I'd guess that the last batch was in 2007, so it's good to see the product is still available.

Steve