Will champagne yeast dryness mellow?

[eadavis80]

Had an extract kit where I failed to reach the target FG by a considerable margin. Target FG was 1.012 and I was "stuck" at 1.021 or so. Ended up pitching a packet of champagne yeast and added yeast nutrient. It did nothing to my beer's gravity for a few days so I figured oh well. However, when my house warmed up the yeast had a second fermentation (a mild krausen was formed and I had airlock activity while in secondary). I ended up bottling the beer yesterday and took another gravity reading. It was at the target FG, if not a tiny bit below. While I'm happy with the ABV, the dryness of the beer is insane. The beer actually tastes a fair amount like champagne. I'm hoping this mellows as it bottle conditions. Do any of you have experience with using champagne yeast and did the dryness flavor eventually lessen with time or is what I sampled yesterday (not very much to my liking) going to be what I'll be stuck with for 45 or so bottles. I think they'll be drinkable, but looking back at it now, I probably should have just accepted a lower ABV or maybe should have pitched a second batch of the yeast the kit originally called for.

 

[TopherM]

Nope, dryness won't mellow. Champagne yeast are designed/bred to attenuate a bit more than most yeast strains, so they eat more sugars, leaving less residual sugars and drying out the beer.

If you hit the FG or even really close, then it isn't much dryer than the recipe called for. Most beers/ciders/wines that actually call for champagne yeasts finish closer to 1.000, not 1.012. The champagne yeast don't make the beer "taste" like champagne, they just attenuate more sugars.

Anyway, nothing much you can do if it's already in bottles. Learn for the next one!

 

[Soviet]

Just wanted to point out that "dryness" in both beer and wine means the opposite of sweetness. So in effect what you're asking is, "Will lack of sweetness mellow?" The answer is no.

Bottle conditioning tends to improve flavors by cleaning up some of the green fermentation byproducts, so I'd hang on to it. And taste a bottle every week or so to see if there's any improvement.

 

[eadavis80]

Thanks guys - at the end of the day, it was a LEARNING experience, which I will benefit from in the future. I would assume all brewers have had a batch that they end up not being thrilled with. This MIGHT end up being mine - only time will tell. I was very happy with the first 5 batches, so I still have a good average going. It would have to be AWFUL for me not to drink it - it just might end up being that beer that you crack LATER IN THE NIGHT when the taste buds aren't quite what they used to be

 

[Queequeg]

You can always add syrup at serving like you can in a Berliner Weisse

 

[fuelish]

If you hit the FG or even really close, then it isn't much dryer than the recipe called for.

^^^ This ^^^