jingleheimer76

Recipes 

OK, here's the situation:

Last year, I brewed a barley wine. 1 week in primary; 5 weeks in secondary. Came in at ~9.5% ABV. Bottled with some corn sugar. 6 weeks later it had ZERO carbonation (but was delicious).

I uncapped all the bottles and dropped in a couple grains of dry champagne yeast into each, and rebottled. Two weeks later, the bottles were beautifully carbonated. 5 months later the beer won awards.

Now, I have done the recipe again. I want the same deliciousness without the uncapping hassle (and without bottle bombs). So what should I do?

Just add a pack of dry champagne yeast to the bottling bucket? Add grains to each bottle as I cap? Fill me in experts . . .

TheBeerist

Recipes 

I am of no help, sorry. I have a ~9% ale that did not carbonate either. Roughly how much yeast would you say you used per bottle? And does it have to be champagne yeast? I have some US-05 sitting around.

jingleheimer76

Recipes 

I just dumped out the champagne yeast on a clean plate and picked up about 2 grains (maybe 3 or 4 for the bombers in the batch). At that much alcohol, I wasn't too worried about contamination. It wasn't y'know - scientific.

I don't know if it needs to be champagne yeast, but that is probably better at high alcohol. Since it is the secondary yeast, it probably won't contribute much to beer flavor.