Can anybody tell me whether wheat yeasts have a lower than average alcohol tollerance and how they fare with more difficult fermentables like honey? The one I have is Safbrew WB-06 (a dry wheat yeast). The (extract) recipe I'm making is for a Leffe Blonde clone, but I want to enhance it into something more like an Abbey Tripel Ale.

The 21litre (5.5 gal) recipe calls for about 5.7 pounds of liquid malt (that's one extract can of Munton's Premium Lager, and one of Black Rock Blond.) And a further 1.1 pounds of wheat malt extract. This should make it about 5% or 6% alcohol.

However I wanted to add a further 1 pound of honey and perhaps some dark brown sugar as well. Would this be too much for a wheat yeast??

Joseph

The alcohol tolerance for WB-06 is roughly 12%. It should ferment honey just fine, because the barley wort will provide plenty of nutrients that honey alone would not.

Personally, I would use T-58 before WB-06 if you are trying a belgian style, but that's just my preference.

Good luck!

Cheers
Dave

Cheers for the info, that's what I wanted to hear. I've used the T-58 (the pink packet one) before, it worked quite well. This time however I'm just adding onto another recipe (leffe blonde) the ingredients of which were on sale - though I must say I thought a Leffe Blonde would have much much more wheat malt in it, maybe even half-half. Maybe the wheat yeast makes it taste much more wheaty than it is? Thanks,