Re-adding yeast at bottling.

So we brewed an Oatmeal stout batch in February, and its currently in the secondary. It's been in the secondary for about 5 weeks and its probably overdue on coming out and being bottled. However, all of the yeast has sunk to the bottom, and there is about a 2 inch sediment layer in each carboy. So, we figure we should add yeast so there is still some fresh/alive yeast to carbonate the beer and help age/perserve it in the bottles. Now, how should we go about doing this. We figure we should add a packet of yeast into the carboys let it sit for a day and then bottle from there, is that a good idea? I'm just concerned about the activity of the yeast and possible bottle explosions and what nots.

For all its worth, before someone asks I'm not sure of the OG or any gravity readings for that matter, lol

You can't really have too much yeast in a bottle. If I were you, I would boil my bottling sugar (3/4 cup dextrose, or DME, or whatever), let it cool to whatever temp a dry packet of yeast says to rehydrate at, rehydrate the yeast per instructions in the bottling sugar and mix in with the beer in the bottling bucket, you should be good to go.

I wish I had done this with my apfelwein, i let it settle too long and it doesn't seem to want to carb.

I'd be willing to bet that you could bottle without the addition of any yeast, and it would carbonate just fine. Yeast are hearty little critters, and even crystal clear homebrew usually has a ton of yeast suspended in it (unless its been filtered).

Yuri_Rage said:

I'd be willing to bet that you could bottle without the addition of any yeast, and it would carbonate just fine. Yeast are hearty little critters, and even crystal clear homebrew usually has a ton of yeast suspended in it (unless its been filtered).

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I think a ton might be a slight exaggeration, but there should still be plenty of yeast to carbonate. It just may take a week or so longer than normal, as much of the yeast will have gone dormant.

-a.

I agree with Yuri and alf. Unless you are using a high flocculating yeast, you probably won't have a problem carbonating.

If you are really paranoid, do what Colorado said.

5 weeks in the secondary is nothing. You will have plenty of yeast in there to carb. Now if it was 5 months that would be a differant story.

I let my Brown Ale set in the secondary too long, and it just took a week or two longer to carbonate the way I like it.
Still taste great and it's nice and clear after setting that long.

I would just siphon some of the settled out yeast in the secondary into the bottling bucket. Give it a good gentle stir in the bottling bucket, then bottle.

biggenius29 said:

5 weeks in the secondary is nothing. You will have plenty of yeast in there to carb. Now if it was 5 months that would be a differant story.

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I have had a stout about 5 months in the secondary. I chickened out at bottling time and added a bit of dry yeast, but I suspect I didn't need to.

BTW, I volume condition all my porters, stouts, IPAs, etc. now for a month or two or more. That stout I did for months was by far the best one yet. The added benefit is that you can condition for a long period of time, and then still dry hop and not lose that hop aroma. Hard to do that if you bottle condition!