Bottle Conditioning Barleywine

I brewed a barleywine at the beginning of January. I fermented in the primary for 3 weeks, and it's currently in the secondary for aging. When I bottle, it will have been in the primary for 3 weeks and in the secondary for about 2 months. I won't be counting on my yeast to be up for carbonating, so I'll be adding back some liquid yeast at bottling time. I did some research and sent my questions over to Wyeast. Here's what they said:

QUESTION:
Hi,
I will be bottle conditioning my high gravity barleywine after aging in
the secondary for 1-2 months. I would like to add yeast at bottling time
to ensure proper carbonation. My questions are:
How much yeast do you recommend using for the bottle conditioning? I've
read 1-2 million cells per mL is a good place to start.

What is the cell density in cells/volume or cells/weight of an Activator
pack (I will be using 1098 if it matters)? What I would calculate is a
volume (or weight) that I need to add to do the conditioning.

In advance, thanks for your help.

RESPONSE:
Thank you for the email.

1-2 million cells per ml. is a good rate for bottle conditioning.

Our cultures are packaged (prior to rupturing the nutrient packet) with
a cell count of 1.2 billion cells per ml. The cultures have a density
of 1.1 g/ml.

You will need ~16-32 ml. (18-35g) yeast per 5 gallons of beer. (3.2-6.4
ml/gal. or 3.5-7 g/gal.).

I hope that this helps.

That's cool to get a response directly from them. I was just listening to the carbonation show on Brew Strong today and the were saying basically the same thing, although a little diff - 1 billion cells per liter of beer. I believe they said this is what SN uses and is kind of an industry standard. Seems right, right?... or have I had too many tonight?

Sounds right to me I think your both saying the same thing.

1,000 million = 1 billion
1 million cells per 1 ml = 1 billion (1,000 million) cells per 1 liter (1000 ml).

I'm trailing you by two months (I'll brew my barley wine this coming weekend). In the past when I have bottled I have just let whatever yeast remained to carbonate and it has always worked just fine. I'm not a beer scientist though. I'm wondering, why wouldn't even the smallest amount of viable yeast work out over the long run?

Here's what I'm thinking about when I write this. In the past I have left beer in a secondary for a couple of months and my typical FGs for the styles of beer I brewed were in the 1.012 - 1.016 range. I now have a baby son and left some beer in a secondary for a very very long time. I'm not sure how long, but it may have been an entire year. What surprised me was that of the three batches in secondary this long, the FG range was 1.006 to 1.010, and that 1.010 was a pretty big beer to begin with. So by this personal example, wouldn't the yeast keep munching, albeit very slowly?

I'm very curious what the thinking is on this.

Scott

scottlindner said:

why wouldn't even the smallest amount of viable yeast work out over the long run?

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It might, but the more important issue is what is optimal (or reasonably optimal) not what will work.

As a side note. Sierra Nevada, Boulevard etc remove all the yeast from the beer via centrifuge or filtering before adding the bottling yeast. So I would definitely should for more like 1 million cells per ml, or even a bit less.

remilard said:

As a side note. Sierra Nevada, Boulevard etc remove all the yeast from the beer via centrifuge or filtering before adding the bottling yeast. So I would definitely should for more like 1 million cells per ml, or even a bit less.

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Good point. I knew that, but didn't think to adjust based on that. I was going to go for the middle and use 1.5 million/ml, but now I think I'll use 1.

jescholler said:

Good point. I knew that, but didn't think to adjust based on that. I was going to go for the middle and use 1.5 million/ml, but now I think I'll use 1.

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Plus, that won't take nearly as long to count them at that rate...

what?...

nothing?...

oh well

Here's something I thought about overnight. My plan is to bottle condition for a very long time. I need to be certain in the amount of fermentables left or I could have little ticking time bombs. I'm considering letting it sit in secondary for about six months, then add champagne yeast to secondary. When that is finished, the prime to hit my target carbonation, hit with more champagne yeast, and bottle.

Scott

just got the barleywine bottled. I ended up going with about 1 million cells per ml. For my 3 gallon batch, it ended up being 14g, after taking into acount viability. I'll report back with the results.

Please do report back! I've got a barleywine that had 2 months in the primary and 4 months in secondary and will probably go a bit longer until I feel up to actually bottling (yuck). I'm sure there will be no usable yeast left in there to carbonate. My only worry is that it's too strong and the yeast won't be able to handle it. And sucks to champagne yeast, I'm not risking bottle bombs on something I've been working on for so long.

Would notty be okay to use?

I bottled a barleywine and went with 11g of dried champagne yeast in a 500ml starter. I have a nice and soft carbonation that is in every one of them. It is a week in the bottle though, so I expect a little heavier carbonation.

Matt Up North said:

I bottled a barleywine and went with 11g of dried champagne yeast in a 500ml starter. I have a nice and soft carbonation that is in every one of them. It is a week in the bottle though, so I expect a little heavier carbonation.

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To make sure I understand what you're saying. You made the starter and added it to the fermenter or bottling bucket (whatever you use) prior to bottling, right? What was the OG and FG of the beer? I'm curious how finished it was.

How long do you plan on keeping it in bottles prior to mass serving? Months, years?

Scott

Quick update:
I tried a bottle after 3 weeks at about 70F. They were slightly carbonated (I'm shooting for 2.1 volumes and it seemed like about 1.6). I increased the temp a couple degrees and I'll give it another 3 weeks.

As a side note, the amount of sediment was nearly identical to when I bottle directly from the primary so I'm not too concerned that there will be too much in the bottles.

I checked another bottle last night after another 3 weeks (1st 3 weeks at about 72 and the next 3 at about 75). It's hard to tell since I'm used to higher carbonation, but I think the carbonation is just about there. Just to be sure I'll give it another couple of weeks at 75.

If I do this again, I think I'll use a bit more yeast. There's only a very slight dusting at the bottom of the bottles and the carbonation has taken longer than I'm used to. It's a fine line between having too much dead yeast in the bottle and aging the beer too quickly by keeping it at an elevated temperature for extended time. Either way, I'm pretty happy with the results for my 1st time and I'm definitely glad that I added the yeast at bottling time.

Now, almost 6 months after that last post, how's the barleywine doing?

I'm not sure. I recently moved to Colorado and I'm storing this batch at my Dad's house in Wisconsin. I live in an apartment now, and I don't have anywhere to keep my beers cool for storage. When I go back to Wisconsin for the holidays, I'll be checking in on this batch. They'll be 1 year old at that time. I'll try to remember and update this thread.

My barleywine (the AG version of Midwest's Bigfoot Barleywine) has been in the bottles about 9 weeks. I sampled a bottle last week, and it's getting there. From what I've read about barleywines, though, I probably won't sample another bottle until January sometime. This sat in the secondary for around 4 months, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's in the bottles another 4-6 months before I really feel like drinking it on a regular basis.

I'm about to bottle my BarleyWine that has been in primary for a month and secondary for 2 more month. Could someone clarify some questions for me:
1. Is this essential? I'm going to wait 6 months to drink it, there should be some yeast to carbonate it by that point right?
If not, or if extra yeast is superior:
2. How much yeast did you add? (in weight if possible)
3. Dry or liquid?
4. Did you re-hydrate in water and add with priming sugar or add a day or 2 in advance or something totally different?

Thanks, this will be by far my biggest beer and longest ferment so I want to make sure it carbs after all this work.

I followed the instructions for my barleywine (Midwest's instructions: http://www.midwestsupplies.com/aitdownloadablefiles/download/aitfile/aitfile_id/237/), which called for 7-14 days primary, 1-6 months secondary (with the addition of champagne yeast in the secondary....just sprinkled it right in), then pretty much standard priming with 5 oz of dextrose and bottling.

I pitched on top of a Wyeast 1056 cake, but if I were using new yeast, would definitely do a starter, or if dry, pitch several 11g packets of S-04 or -05. I did a 3 week primary, a 4 month secondary, and it's been in the bottles 2 months, seems to be coming right along, although with this beer I don't expect it's going to be really great for another 6-12 months.

MattHollingsworth said:

Now, almost 6 months after that last post, how's the barleywine doing?

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I tried this barleywine a couple of days ago for the holidays. The carbonation did now quite get to the point that I had hoped for. It did have a light carbonation (probably appropriate for the English style), but not what I was shooting for. I tried to carbonate it to 2.1 volumes, but I don't think it got there.

After reading Jamil and Chris White's yeast book, I would probably add more yeast next time. I just read this a couple of weeks ago:

"High-gravity beers will require more yeast for carbonation, up to 5 million cells per milliliter, due to the high alcohol levels".

Matt, can you elaborate on your carbonation method? Mainly, why did you do a starter rather than just adding rehydrated yeast?

jescholler said:

I tried this barleywine a couple of days ago for the holidays. The carbonation did now quite get to the point that I had hoped for. It did have a light carbonation (probably appropriate for the English style), but not what I was shooting for. I tried to carbonate it to 2.1 volumes, but I don't think it got there.

After reading Jamil and Chris White's yeast book, I would probably add more yeast next time. I just read this a couple of weeks ago:

"High-gravity beers will require more yeast for carbonation, up to 5 million cells per milliliter, due to the high alcohol levels".

Matt, can you elaborate on your carbonation method? Mainly, why did you do a starter rather than just adding rehydrated yeast?

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Thanks for the update. I'm gonna try krauesening with my barley wine to be bottled in January.

Matt Up North, think he's talking to you in this last bit here.

Subscribing. Making an RIS and a Barleywine after the holidays to have ready for Christmas 2011. I have been batting around some ideas in my head as to how I want to condition and age these beers.

So far, i have done 3 "big" beers. Each time I have bottled after 3-4 weeks in the primary fermenter ensuring I had reached my expected final gravity and seeing no further movement for at least a week. I felt that it could age in the bottle instead of a secondary and therefore the yeast would still be viable enough that it would bottle carbonate. My results have been very good. The sediment is not excessive and the beer is quite clear. So after reading this thread I am wondering why you would secondary for so long as to require adding new yeast if you are going to bottle age it anyway?

shamanjp said:

So far, i have done 3 "big" beers. Each time I have bottled after 3-4 weeks in the primary fermenter ensuring I had reached my expected final gravity and seeing no further movement for at least a week. I felt that it could age in the bottle instead of a secondary and therefore the yeast would still be viable enough that it would bottle carbonate. My results have been very good. The sediment is not excessive and the beer is quite clear. So after reading this thread I am wondering why you would secondary for so long as to require adding new yeast if you are going to bottle age it anyway?

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Good question. The answer is simple enough: beer ages faster in bulk. Not to knock your technique; if it works for you keep on doing so.

shamanjp said:

So far, i have done 3 "big" beers. Each time I have bottled after 3-4 weeks in the primary fermenter ensuring I had reached my expected final gravity and seeing no further movement for at least a week. I felt that it could age in the bottle instead of a secondary and therefore the yeast would still be viable enough that it would bottle carbonate. My results have been very good. The sediment is not excessive and the beer is quite clear. So after reading this thread I am wondering why you would secondary for so long as to require adding new yeast if you are going to bottle age it anyway?

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I actually like the idea. I stopped doing secondaries on my smaller beers, so I wondering if the same logic would apply here. If it's something you're going to age for years anyways, does the difference between bulk aging and aging in the bottle really matter?

Im brewing a barleywine this friday, i like the idea of just bottle aging the beer to ensure carbonation. What do you think of the idea leaving it in the primary for 6-8weeks and around week 7 add the champaign yeast then bottleing the following week with priming sugar and all? I will be using 16oz flip top bottles....long story short primary 7weeks add champaign yeast for a week then bottle condition for another 6-8weeks

I aged my "Bigfoot Barleywine" (used Midwests' recipe) for 4 months in the secondary, pretty much per directions. As for the reason one ages big beers like that, I think the theory is if you bottle too quickly and age, you can get 50 somewhat different batches, as opposed to one aged batch. I couldn't testify to that, though.

O

rico567 said:

I aged my "Bigfoot Barleywine" (used Midwests' recipe) for 4 months in the secondary, pretty much per directions. As for the reason one ages big beers like that, I think the theory is if you bottle too quickly and age, you can get 50 somewhat different batches, as opposed to one aged batch. I couldn't testify to that, though.

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My concerned would be bottle bombs two years down the road, regardless if that's a legit concern or not.

The oldest of my 3 big beers is a Belgian Double which is just weeks shy of one year old. I just opened one before I started typing this. I can tell when I open the bottle that it is not over carbonated or even near being a bottle bomb. It is nicely carbed and has a small creamy head that dissipates very slowly. The flavor is deliciously sweet and complex and even at 9% abv it goes down very smooth yet it does leave a warmth and a light bitterness that calls out for another taste.
The second is a Tripel that is also carbed nicely and at less than 6 months old it is all I can do to leave the bottles in their cases. Two cases left and one stray in the back of the fridge. This is my favorite "winter" beer. Someone in my brewing guild got me hooked on it and I plan to make another batch very soon.
The third is a Strong Scotch Ale which is quite young (5 weeks) and tastes it. It is carbonated but not quite enough yet. It was the first half of a partigyle the second half of which is an 80 shilling and that has been well received especially by non brewing friends who find my pale ales too bitter.
All three of these "big" beers spent less than a month in primary and were then bottled. I did not add any fresh yeast. My fermenter has a bottling spigot so I used carbonation drops in the bottles instead of priming sugar and was careful not to rouse the yeast cake at all. So I figure the yeast cake had time to carbonate and clean up but not enough time to add off flavors. I bottled while the yeast was still viable, added a carbonation drop to each bottle and never exposed the beer to any unnecessary amount of oxygen. I am very happy with the results.
I am still learning and I know there are many brewing techniques I still need to learn but I though I would share my thoughts as I have learned much from reading these forums as well as from joining a brewing guild.
Brew on!

I thought that I would throw in some personal experience. I brewed a barleywine last year, gave it a month in primary and a little over a month in secondary. I did not add yeast at bottling. After about a month in bottles, there was little or no carbonation. After a little over two months in bottles, they are all nicely carbed. They definitely need some conditioning time now to let the flavours blend (i'm thinking at least 6 more months).

Gordzilla said:

Im brewing a barleywine this friday, i like the idea of just bottle aging the beer to ensure carbonation. What do you think of the idea leaving it in the primary for 6-8weeks and around week 7 add the champaign yeast then bottleing the following week with priming sugar and all? I will be using 16oz flip top bottles....long story short primary 7weeks add champaign yeast for a week then bottle condition for another 6-8weeks

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The one thing that I might worry a little about is the seal on those flip tops when long term aging. If I was going long term I would definitely want crown caps, and it might be worth considering O2 absorbing caps.

the barleywine i got has a champaign yeast included with it, i was thinking leaving the barleywine in the primary for roughly 6weeks let those yeasties do their job. After which i would transfer to a secondary to allow for some clearing of the beer i would also be adding the champaign yeast at this time, i would only have the beer in the secondary (i might even use my botteling bucket for this) for about a week add the priming sugar and bottle. Im not worried about bottle bombs i will be using 16oz fliptop bottles so it would need ALOT of pressure to blow one of those off. Your thoughts?

I wouldn't be worried about the flip tops blowing off, more that the rubber gaskets are exposed to the air on the outside. If you want to keep some bottles for a few years, I would be concerned that the rubber could crack, and that you could lose your seal. I personally love flip tops for things that age for a few months, but those gaskets don't last forever.

I've never personally lost a bottle due to a cracked gasket, and maybe this wouldn't happen, but I worry about lots of silly things.

do you think the fermenting process im thinking about will work alright though? 6weeks primary 1week secondary w/ champaign yeast then bottle with priming sugars?

Gordzilla said:

do you think the fermenting process im thinking about will work alright though? 6weeks primary 1week secondary w/ champaign yeast then bottle with priming sugars?

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Of that I have no doubt, although a secondary that short is barely worth doing IMHO, I would either go longer or not at all. It won't mess anything up though. You could probably also skip the extra yeast if you wanted to, but adding it won't hurt anything, also IMHO.

the kit came with the campaign yeast which is suppose to be a high ABV yeast but the starter yeast i mad was a combination of white labs california ale and a white labs high ABV yeast...i just want to get total fermentation out of this barleywine....thinking maybe ill just pitch the campaign during the 7th or 8th week then rack to a bottling bucket and be good from their....hopefully

cklages said:

I wouldn't be worried about the flip tops blowing off, more that the rubber gaskets are exposed to the air on the outside. If you want to keep some bottles for a few years, I would be concerned that the rubber could crack, and that you could lose your seal. I personally love flip tops for things that age for a few months, but those gaskets don't last forever.

I've never personally lost a bottle due to a cracked gasket, and maybe this wouldn't happen, but I worry about lots of silly things.

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Not that it would be feasible with flip tops, but I have toyed with an idea for longterm aging of big beers. My LHBS sells colored wax pellets that most people seem to use for wine I think. You melt the pellets and dip the capped or corked bottle in them to form a wax cap over the already sealed bottle opening.

I am not a patient man so I always seem to forget to put back some of my big beers for really longterm aging. If I can ever force myself to do it, I have thought about using this cap and wax method on a barley wine or RIS. I figure it would reduce the chances of any oxygen transfer during aging.

My question about oxygen absorbing caps is which way do they absorb?

Do they pull oxygen that might have been in the bottle at filling and purge it? (In which case, sealing with wax might be counter productive)

Or do they trap oxygen that tries to enter the bottle from the outside (in which case waxing might be a secondary backup to the O2 caps). If this is the case, I could see them working well together for longterm aging. The wax keeps out the majority of the air. The cap absorbs the rest. Combine that with transferring under CO2 and the only O2 you'd have to worry about is the O2 that was in the bottle when you filled it.

I guess that is a lot of speculation since I am still not 100% clear on how the caps work.

First I would like to apologize to the OP for the hijack, although I think his question did get answered, and this is all barleywine related right?

I think great minds must think alike, as I recently purchased some wax to put over the crown caps on some bottles of barleywine I want to age for a few years. I don't know if it will help but it can't hurt, right?

There is precious little information on those O2 absorbing caps, and pretty much everything I found was pretty subjective.

In those that noted a difference, it seems like it was in beers that were aged a year or more, and it seemed relatively slight. It also seemed that oxidative damage from a bad process could not be repaired by these caps, only possibly prevented from being caused by the O2 in the headspace.

As far as how do they work, here is a reference to a paper related to O2 absorbers in food storage that might help.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/0471440264.pst570/pdf

I used O2 absorbing caps in my barleywine simply because they weren't that much more expensive and I figured they couldn't hurt. That being said, maybe they could hurt. I mean seeing some of the compounds that could be impregnated into the polymer in the lid, some of those have to taste awful.

here's a short list from the referenced document

Sulfites
Boron
Glycols and sugar alcohols
Unsaturated fatty acids and hydrocarbons
Palladium catalysts
Enzymes
Yeast
Ferrous-iron
Organometallic ligands
Photosensitive dyes
Polydiene block copolymers
Polymer-bound olefins​

Aromatic nylon

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Now these things have been around long enough with few enough complaints that I presume the o2 absorbers are pretty benign. Some people even swear by them, and that's good enough for me. We are going to need some HBTers to do some blind taste testing though, and my palate isnt nearly good enough for this sort of work.

I brewed a beer that was 1.135 OG and fermented down to 1.035. I brewed on a yeast cake and bottled after 2 months. I added NO additional yeast and this 12% monster carbonated quite quickly. Why the extra work?

cockybitz said:

I brewed a beer that was 1.135 OG and fermented down to 1.035. I brewed on a yeast cake and bottled after 2 months. I added NO additional yeast and this 12% monster carbonated quite quickly. Why the extra work?

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Well first, not all of us dump onto yeast cakes.

Second, I wouldn't really call it "extra work." Just forgetting about it until a few months later and deciding to bottle... seems easy to me