Carbonating Aged Brew

Hey All...

I have a Scottish Wee Heavy that I've been aging for about 9 months now and I want to go to bottles with it. Will there be enough yeast left to carbonate with corn sugar?

Thoughts?

Add a pack of yeast at bottling time to make sure your beer carbonates. It may carbonate without it but it could take a while since most of your yeast are out of suspension. You don't want to be disappointed later when you go to open your first brew and find it flat.

Just a thought if you don't want to add more yeast as I've never aged anything that long.

http://www.google.com/products?q=Muntons+Carbonation+tabs&hl=en

Elweydoloco said:

Just a thought if you don't want to add more yeast as I've never aged anything that long.

http://www.google.com/products?q=Muntons+Carbonation+tabs&hl=en

Click to expand...

Using muntons won't change whether or not the OP needs to add more yeast or not. All the carb tabs are is a different kind of sugar....sugar is not an issue, adding fresh yeast is.

It's not a bad idea when aging big beers to add a packet of yeast at bottling time.

Otherwise they still will more than likely carb, but it could take 6 months without fresh yeast, if it's a high grav beer.

I had a question along the same line. I have an Vanilla Rum Oak Porter that has been sitting in secondary for its 3rd month and have the same fear of bottling and it not carbing properly. My main concern was the rum that was added in addition to the time it has been sitting. Should I consider adding yeast at bottling?

BubberJ said:

I had a question along the same line. I have an Vanilla Rum Oak Porter that has been sitting in secondary for its 3rd month and have the same fear of bottling and it not carbing properly. My main concern was the rum that was added in addition to the time it has been sitting. Should I consider adding yeast at bottling?

Click to expand...

I usually add 1/2 a pack of champagne yeast to my big beers before bottling.
I always keep some on hand .Works great.

When I've had to carb a big / long fermented beer, I usually add one (or a few) of the yeast grains to each bottle, then add the sugared beer.

While there are always yeast in suspension, I don't like the idea of waiting months for carbonation to occur.

Add 1/3 of a sachet of Red Star Montrachet Wine Yeast as you are racking in to your bottling bucket. The wine yeast is cheap, is used to high alcohol environments, and will only eat the simple priming sugar you put in the beer. It'll carb pretty quickly as long as you keep the beer warm enough. This is what I do with all my beers that go in to tertiary for an extended period of time.