Belgian B question

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
B

badnaam

Active Member
Joined
May 4, 2007
Messages
41
Reaction score
0
I noticed, the brew like a monk book suggests the secondary temperate for a lot of belgianis to be very low (46-32F), while the primary is between 64-75 or even more.

Questions

1 - Has anyone managed to replicate this type of temp range?

2 - What's the deal with bottling with fresh yeast? At what FG does this need to be done?

3 - Won't the bottles burst if we do 2?
 
1. The primary temperatures are what give some of the fruity temperatures. After primary is done, the cold conditioning is lagering. My belgian Dubbel didn't have the cold secondary, but I don't see why it wouldn't hurt.

2. The reason for fresh yeast is partially due to #1. The lagering will drop everything out of suspension, possibly enough yeast to make carbonation a problem. If you don't cold condition, the beer isn't insanely strong, or it doesn't sit for a ton of time I wouldn't worry about it.

3. Carbonation is a function of the amount of fermentable sugar, not yeast. Priming sugar needs to be added at bottling. The fresh yeast is just to ensure that the sugar gets eaten up and converted to CO2.

-edit- my belgian sat for 6 months in secondary and is at about 10% ABV so I decided to pitch new yeast at bottling.
 
  1. No, but I don't know what those temps would accomplish, short of better clarification.
  2. You bottle with "fresh" yeast to ensure bottle fermentation. In other words, after extended aging, it's quite possible that the original yeast has, for the most part, dropped out of suspension, and you need to add more to ensure that the priming sugar gets converted to co2/alcohol in the bottle.
  3. Absolutely not. The yeast can only eat what sugar you give them. If you gave 100 million yeast cells 3/4 cup of priming sugar, they would, in theory, produce the exact same amount of carbonation/alcohol as 200 million cells. Think about it like this: let's say you have 50 gallons of gasoline and 5 cars that all get the same mileage. Do you think that, if you added 2 more cars to the mix but kept the amoutn of gas the same, you'd be able to go farther? No. Once the yeast eat the available sugar, they're done. The only way you overcarb is too much sugar.
 
Another question about this, I'm aging a Belgian Golden Strong at the moment. It should be ready to bottle around November/December, when pitching new yeast should I use the same type of yeast I used in the wort originally?
 

Similar threads

Z
Refermenting a Belgian Tripel
Replies
4
Views
645
Jeroen79
J
S
Safale S-33 Experience
Replies
9
Views
2K
SwampFoxBrewer
S
G
Fermenting time in older recipes
Replies
2
Views
377
Gitruih
G
Gytaryst
First Brew in 5 years - I Have Questions
Replies
14
Views
889
Gytaryst
Gytaryst
luckybeagle
Recipe Critique on Belgian Dubbel with Rochefort Strain
Replies
5
Views
587
hottpeper13
H
BrewSwag 300

Latest posts

Back
Top