3 month old primary - how to bottle

Just wanted some opinions on a couple beers I brewed about 3 months ago. I started a new job and have been swamped, so they've been in primary this whole time. I sampled them today and they both are at FG and taste scrumptious, however because they've been sitting so long, I'm worried about carbing. Both are high ABV, an imperial stout and a belgian tripel.

Should I:
A: Just bottle as normal.
B: Siphon up some of the yeast cake from the bottom when transferring to the bottling bucket
C: Add some champagne yeast or other type of yeast at bottling
D: Other opinions?

Thanks for any help. I'm planning on letting these age until about thanksgiving, so hopefully they will be amazing.

B, but very little is needed.

In the book Brew Like A Monk, a pretty big deal is made about repitching fresh yeast at bottling. I think ideally it should be active yeast from another primary; however, I actually have a Quad in the same situation as your brews. I e-mailed White Labs about how they would recommend dosing new yeast from the vial for this purpose, and the reply I got was from one of the lab guys who is also a fellow homebrewer...he says he uses a half vial added at bottling and gets great results. I can't give you any personal experience, as I *still* haven't bottled my Quad, but I'm planning on doing the above. I'll try to remember to post the results.... Regardless, I'd still expect that no matter what you do, you should expect that it will take weeks if not a month or two to get fully carbed up and conditioned in the bottle.

I would have to say pitch a packet of us05 dry yeast into bottling bucket and forget about it....I've done this without issue on beers that we're high abv or sat for along time in primary and works like a charm.....cheap solution and no worries about whether beer will carb up.

bighorn_brew said:

I would have to say pitch a packet of us05 dry yeast into bottling bucket and forget about it....I've done this without issue on beers that we're high abv or sat for along time in primary and works like a charm.....cheap solution and no worries about whether beer will carb up.

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This sounds like essentially the same thing as I was mentioning, although a whole packet seems excessive to me. Not that you'd necessarily use the rest of the yeast for anything else (I suppose if you were brewing a fairly low gravity brew the same day or something...), but that it might be "too much" yeast for bottling.

I guess you've never noticed any ill effect though...

when pitching extra dry at bottling, does it actually mix uniformly into solution? what i mean is do the little yeast balls (what else could they be called) actually mix to disperse all around the beer to actually get into every bottle? i'm debating on doing this for the tripel i'm making this weekend (when i am bottling of course) but haven't decided

Another thing I was thinking about regarding dry yeast is that if you were to use it, you should definitely rehydrate it beforehand. If nothing else, this would mitigate the "yeast balls," but further, everything I have read while researching this topic in the past convinces me that you have a definite drop in vitality/cell count when pitching directly into wort, and I'd only assume this would be even more pronounced pitching into a highly alcoholic already fermented beer.

If it were a normal grav beer, I would say do nothing, I've bottled normal grav beers after 6 months in primary and they carbed fine without. But since they're high, a little fresh yeast isn't a bad idea.

"when pitching extra dry at bottling, does it actually mix uniformly into solution? what i mean is do the little yeast balls (what else could they be called) actually mix to disperse all around the beer to actually get into every bottle? i'm debating on doing this for the tripel i'm making this weekend (when i am bottling of course) but haven't decided"


Boil water, collect approximately 30 mls of sanitized water set aside to cool, proceed to boiling priming sugar. With the small amount of cooled sanitized water use a sanitized spoon to mix the dry yeast into solution, then add to cooled priming solution, bottle as usual. a half packet is sufficient, and you could bottle both the same day, No fuss no muss....

Like Bighorn said, just make a slurry and add as you would your priming sugar OR if you're uber anal you could get one of these medicine droppers with graduated measurements and drop a few MLs into each bottle.



That's usually how I've recommened folks who are having bottling issues do to tired yeast do it if their beer is already in the bottles.

bighorn_brew said:

Boil water, collect approximately 30 mls of sanitized water set aside to cool, proceed to boiling priming sugar. With the small amount of cooled sanitized water use a sanitized spoon to mix the dry yeast into solution, then add to cooled priming solution, bottle as usual. a half packet is sufficient, and you could bottle both the same day, No fuss no muss....

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that sounds good to me.. depending on how long i primary i may do that, may not.. but at least i know how to do it

I would say, buy one packet of dry yeast, or one vial, and split it between the two beers. Put half in the priming bucket with one beer, and mix it in well. then bottle. Then put the other half in the other beer, etc. (almost put your priming sugar in of course). Otherwise you will likely end up with flat beer, but still delicious!

I might be the minority here, but champagne yeast is the cheapest of the fresh yeast options. It's also the most alcohol tolerant. What would be a good reason not to use it?

looneybomber said:

I might be the minority here, but champagne yeast is the cheapest of the fresh yeast options. It's also the most alcohol tolerant. What would be a good reason not to use it?

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Champagne yeast is fine- it only works on simple sugars so it's no good for making beer or drying it out, but it's fine for priming, as long as you prime with a simple sugar like dextrose or sucrose.

I think I'll hit my local supplier and see if they have dry yeast and add a bit. Sounds best to just add a few and not risk it. Thanks all for the advice!