WLP007 yeast died out, pitch 099 now

My WLP007 died out at 1.054 OG was 1.142....that means it made it to about 11.5% ABV...seems good to me. I have some 099 super high gravity yeast that I made a 2L starter for last night. I am leaving for a week and can not step it up so I plan on pitching today. A few questions...what temperature should I ferment this at...there's still a decent amount of fermentables in there and I don't want to produce off flavors but I want the yeast to be happy and get this down under 1.030. Thanks.

I tried this once, I believe I fermented it around 68F.

For me, the results were ok. The WLP099 did lower the gravity, but not as much as I intended. I do recall the comments of whitelabs.com were favorable for the yeast. My experience was probably affected by the wort not being very fermentable. It was an extract beer and I was a new brewer at the time. Hopefully your results will be better.

So it's been 2 and a half days no signs of fermentation yet...took a gravity reading. Is it possible the yeast is taking it's time to start? I raised the temp to 70f. I can't imagine there aren't any fermentable sugars in there or that the 12% abv beer is too much for the 099 to handle. Not sure what to do at this point but wait it out for a few more days?

Strongarm, what ended up happening with this? I'm planning an English Barley Wine and am debating between WLP007, WLP099, or starting with 007 and potentially finishing with 099 depending on the performance of the former. So, I'm interested how yours turned out.

strongarm said:

So it's been 2 and a half days no signs of fermentation yet...took a gravity reading. Is it possible the yeast is taking it's time to start? I raised the temp to 70f. I can't imagine there aren't any fermentable sugars in there or that the 12% abv beer is too much for the 099 to handle. Not sure what to do at this point but wait it out for a few more days?

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If a beer has already floc'd out you can't just dump a vial of new yeast in there and expect it to take off. It's already been acidified by the previous fermentation, all the O2 has been consumed and in general it's a very hard place for a new pitch to take hold. What you'll need to do is make a small starter (1L or so) with DME (only need to go up to about 1.030 or 1.040) with a very large amount of available oxygen. Once that starter is at high krausen, THEN you add it to the fermenter. The yeast will be rocking a full parent/daughter generation span and be at maximum metabolic output, which should be enough for them to pickup on the residual sugars in your beer.

My 099 did bring it down another 15 points but it took a while....2-3 weeks I think. I did make a starter with the 099 before pitching. This method has now worked for me twice....start with 007 then finish with 099. I recommend it.