Pitching yeast during bottle condition...now I'm totally confused

I was just on Northern Brewers website and clicked on a bottle conditioning article they have. They started talking about bottle conditioning using yeast. Can someone explain this to me? I've been using my typical priming sugar, but what does adding a second round of yeast do? Just when I think I have it figured out...

It higher grav beers, or beers that have set in secondary for a long time like 6 months or more, it's often a good idea to add some fresh yeast along with the priming sugar to the beer. It's really that simple. Some folks even do it all the time. But it's really that simple.

Most of the time when you add yeast at bottling, it's to ensure carbonation.

This is normally not a concern for average beers, but can be a concern with aged beers (barleywines, sour beers, etc.) that have been aged for 6 months to a year.

Other times, you can pitch a yeast at bottling time to develop different flavors. For instance, I brewed an Orval clone with the Wyeast Trappist Blend at the beginning of this year. I let it be in the primary for a month, the secondary for 3 months and dry hopped it for 2 weeks. When it was bottling time, I wanted it to be more "authentic" so I built up a starter of Orval dregs and pitched it in at bottling time. The beer has really changed a lot over time and has really picked up the tart/funky aromas and flavors that Orval has.

In normal circumstances, it is not necessary to add more yeast at bottling.

Cheers!

I'm just making a german style wiess (I know I'm not being authentic at this point by using spiess). So I'm guessing the adding of yeast isn't necessary since this beer style is better the fresher it is...i.e. no sitting?

For sure you won't need yeast. If you are using speise they will carb up really well and really fast. I have been using it for the last while and I have fully carbed bottles within a week. It works great. I just make a couple extra liters of wort and freeze it till needed. Super easy and works super good. I will never bother with sugar again.

I would not worry about pitching fresh yeast in that. Just make sure you get a proper level of carbonation on that one (about 3-3.5 volumes), drinking an under-carbonated German weizen is pretty disappointing.

BVilleggiante said:

(I know I'm not being authentic at this point by using spiess.)

Click to expand...

Do you mean spices or speise? HUGE difference...

Speise...spelling get's me once again!