Champagne Yeast- maybe a stupid question

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Catfish

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This might be a really good question... maybe not.

Thinking of doing a dry stout and adding champagne yeast to the secondary prior to bottling. One point hammered in is you need plenty of oxygen in your wort for happy yeasties. But you don't want any oxygen after the fermentation gets going. So, what if you're repitching yeast? If you aerate the beer in the secondary wouldn't the champagne yeast use up the oxygen in the wort or would the O2 just ruin your beer?
 
By the time you rack into your secondary, most of your sugars have been eaten up. The champagne yeast wouldn't have much to eat, so it seems a little pointless to me. Why not in the primary? Is there somewhere that says that we can't put two different kinds of yeast in the primary at the same time? (I'm really asking)

I was considering what a champagne yeast/ale yeast combo would taste like a few weeks ago. I may have to just do it!

Edit: I just re-read that you want it to go in right before you bottle. You're just asking for bombs! Take cover!

There are no stupid questions, just stupid people. If you're here, I doubt you're one!
 
I've seen a lot of posts here where people add more yeast or a different style of yeast for bottling.

This is completely unnecessary (there's plenty of viable yeast available even after a LONG secondary rest) and may even change the character of the beer. Why would you not want your dry stout to taste like a dry stout?
 
catfish said:
This might be a really good question... maybe not.

Thinking of doing a dry stout and adding champagne yeast to the secondary prior to bottling. One point hammered in is you need plenty of oxygen in your wort for happy yeasties. But you don't want any oxygen after the fermentation gets going. So, what if you're repitching yeast? If you aerate the beer in the secondary wouldn't the champagne yeast use up the oxygen in the wort or would the O2 just ruin your beer?

Add the O2 in a starter then pitch the starter after the yeast has setteled out. You'll get through the growth phase, increasing your cell level. They may try to repopulate the carboy but you're only using them to carbonate with right? I won't really matter.
 
I use it frequently in stouts and to dry out high ABV ciders. All I do is re-hydrate and add it. I don't make a starter and I don't add O2. The amount of carbonation is determined by the amount of sugar, not yeast. The amount of yeast determines the speed of carbonation. Since there is only a little bit of sugar left, there shouldn't be any problems with bombs.

It's a slow yeast, so it isn't very good for initial fermentations.

Champagne yeast doesn't add any flavor, as far as I can tell. Remember, it has been breed to carbonate dry white wines, so no flavors.

Why add it before bottling? It gives the most amazingly creamy head to stout, short of nitro.
 
That's basically how I thought it should go... but you never know.
How long do you give the yeast in the secondary before bottling?
 
It seems to me that since champagne is a slower yeast, adding it a few weeks before you bottle should be ideal. This is just speculation and hearsay. I also think I'll use DME to prime the ones I have with champagne yeast in the secondary. Pretty much the only thing the yeast will have to eat will be the priming sugar, so I don't want it to alter the flavor of the beer with a cidery taste like I've heard you get with dextrose.
Also, if you're dealing with a high ABV% beer, I think you should give the yeast time to eat any available sugars in the secondary before you bottle it. If champagne yeast takes a long time, isn't it possible that you could bottle with sugars still available to the champagne yeast, plus the primer, and then BOOM!!!?
 
rewster451 said:
I also think I'll use DME to prime the ones I have with champagne yeast in the secondary. Pretty much the only thing the yeast will have to eat will be the priming sugar, so I don't want it to alter the flavor of the beer with a cidery taste like I've heard you get with dextrose.
There isn't sufficient sugar for priming to alter the taste of your brew. But if you want to add a couple 3 pounds to your boil, then you may taste a bit.:D

Wild
 
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