Dry Yeast to help carbonate a high alc content Belgian

I keg the majority of my beers and force carbonate but want to bottle a few beers from a high alc content Belgian (~11.5%). I was going to add a few grains of dry yeast to each bottle to ensure the bottles carbonated after transferring out of secondary. Any suggestions on a good strain to choose from? The primary strain was WLP500.

I think some brewers use a lager strain. But, I think us-05 would work well. Basically you want something neutral that won't make a big mess in the bottles. The lager yeast can be dusty and leave less sediment. US-05 works similar.

At 11.5%, you are going to have a rough time getting carbonation. I'd suggest top-cropping an actively fermenting beer and using the kraeusen to do the bottle conditioning (or you could simply make a starter, shake it up and dose with a pipette). If you don't want to mess with this tedious process, I'd go with champagne yeast.

At the winery where I work, we use a bayanus yeast for tough fermentation and restart stuck. It is very high EtOH tolerant called Uvaferm 43 or U-43. I'm new to beer making, so don't know very much about beer yeasts, but for the little caronation that may be required of fermentable sugars, I was wondering if that may work.

FWIW, I have used Safbrew T-58 on a 9.5% Tripel. I was carbed in a week. I've emailed Wyeast on this issue and they recommended pitching a propagator pack of 1056.

Thanks for the replies. I think I'll try washing the yeast out of primary, build a starter, and then add fermenting starter to the bottles via pipet.

^^^ That seems to be a sound plan. I'd add the yeast to the bottling bucket along with the sugar, though, instead of to each bottle individually.

I bookmarked this PDF from Fermentis' site a while ago... In the conclusion on the last page, they say T-58 and S-33 are good for bottle conditioning. A chart on an earlier page suggests that for 11% ABV, T-58 would be the better choice.

And, like Guld said above... I'd add the yeast to the bottling bucket.

Sun Devil said:

Thanks for the replies. I think I'll try washing the yeast out of primary, build a starter, and then add fermenting starter to the bottles via pipet.

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No, don't do that, it will be inconsistent. Rack out the beer into a container, make up a yeast starter with a small amount of water to re-hydrate it, and add it to the total batch. Then when you add to the bottles it will be consistent. But, if you don't know exactly how much unfermentable sugars are in the batch, then you risk either too little carbonataion or too much, resulting in many kabooms.

The problem with using yeast from the primary is that they will be just as tired as the yeast in suspension. The reason for adding more yeast at bottling time is to get fresh yeast in there that haven't already fermented a big beer. It's better than nothing, but since dry yeast is pretty cheap it might be worth it to buy some t-58.

ReverseApacheMaster said:

The problem with using yeast from the primary is that they will be just as tired as the yeast in suspension. The reason for adding more yeast at bottling time is to get fresh yeast in there that haven't already fermented a big beer. It's better than nothing, but since dry yeast is pretty cheap it might be worth it to buy some t-58.

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I disagree. A hearty yeast strain that is already acclamated to high alcohol may sluggishly move forward, where fresh yeast of the same strain will go into a coma when tossed into a high alcohol environment.

Or so I theorize.

I would go with the frementing starter, but make sure it has eaten all fermentables.

I have had success adding fresh yeast to cooled priming solution, wait til it is foamy, then toss the poor suckers into the high alcohol while they are in mid meal.

My imperial stout 12%abv carbed up that way.

No, yeast don't get tired, but the yeast from the main primary batch will have sediment in it that can cause off flavors if left in contact long enough.

I always use liquid yeasts, but always have a pac or two of dry yeast floating around for just such an occassion, I hydrate one pack (S-05, but am interested in the suggestions for other strains), add that and sugar to the bottling bucket, rack the beer on to mix, and bottle. So far I've been good to go up to 10%...haven't brewed anything higher so I can't comment on that.

smizak said:

FWIW, I have used Safbrew T-58 on a 9.5% Tripel.

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I've done this as well - 4 grams dried yeast hydrated in 40 grams water and added to the bottling bucket with my priming sugar. Carbed up just fine.

Gibbs said:

No, don't do that, it will be inconsistent. Rack out the beer into a container, make up a yeast starter with a small amount of water to re-hydrate it, and add it to the total batch. Then when you add to the bottles it will be consistent. But, if you don't know exactly how much unfermentable sugars are in the batch, then you risk either too little carbonataion or too much, resulting in many kabooms.

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What I forgot to add was that I'd plan on adding a carbonation tablet (Coopers) to each bottle along with the fermenting yeast from the pipet. The beer finished out at 1.009 so I don't think there are many fermentables left in the batch. I don't plan on bottling the whole batch, maybe just a third of it. I've had good success with smaller beers and the coopers tablets doing this, just wanted to make sure there was still viable yeast as I'll have let this sit in secondary for about 6-8 weeks by the time I bottle it.

If this gets too complicated I can always bottle out of the keg which I've done with Barleywines. Just wanted to try something else, and a little more in line with what the Belgians might do.

Thoughts?

If you're using simple sugar to prime and carb with you can add almost any dry wine yeast at bottling and get carbonation pretty quickly. I've got a 16.5% Barleywine that I used 1/4 of a sachet of Red Star Montrachet to carb up, I had great carbonation in 2 weeks.

wyzazz said:

If you're using simple sugar to prime and carb with you can add almost any dry wine yeast at bottling and get carbonation pretty quickly. I've got a 16.5% Barleywine that I used 1/4 of a sachet of Red Star Montrachet to carb up, I had great carbonation in 2 weeks.

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When you carbonated your barley wine did you rehydrate the dry yeast or just dump the dry stuff in?

I sprinkled ~1/3 of the packet in for 5 gallons, did this while siphoning the beer in to the bottling bucket to get it mixed in well.

The wine yeast is DANGEROUS.

It may start fermenting things your beer yeast weren't able to, in addition to priming sugar and tabs.

If you drink it all in 2 weeks, great, longer than that you may have problems including, but not limited to: overcarbonation, unintended drying out, bottle bombs, etc.

cheezydemon3 said:

The wine yeast is DANGEROUS.

It may start fermenting things your beer yeast weren't able to, in addition to priming sugar and tabs.

If you drink it all in 2 weeks, great, longer than that you may have problems including, but not limited to: overcarbonation, unintended drying out, bottle bombs, etc.

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I've got a Barleywine with a FG of 1.030 in the bottle for almost a year that was bottled with wine yeast. Wine yeast isn't like Brett or Lacto, actually it's more prone to eat simple sugars as opposed to the more complex sugars you will see in beer. Just my $.02...

cheezydemon3 said:

The wine yeast is DANGEROUS.

It may start fermenting things your beer yeast weren't able to, in addition to priming sugar and tabs.

If you drink it all in 2 weeks, great, longer than that you may have problems including, but not limited to: overcarbonation, unintended drying out, bottle bombs, etc.

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I've heard that wine yeast cannot ferment maltose and other higher order sugars. That may be strain dependent, and I've never tested that theory. I've also heard other brewers say that adding champagne yeast to dry out your beer is a myth as well. Some Belgian beer producers(St. Bernardus is one) filter out their primary yeast strain and add champagne yeast to bottle condition, those beers have plenty of residual sugars for the yeast to consume if they were wont to.

Just in case it's strain dependent, I used Red Star Montrachet. I almost always have a sachet on hand & it's dirt cheap!

Hmmmm....I do not know except for stuff read on these here internets.

My research several years ago led me to try the "krausening" method I described over champagne or wine yeast.

I do not know from personal experience!

cheezydemon3 said:

Hmmmm....I do not know except for stuff read on these here internets.

My research several years ago led me to try the "krausening" method I described over champagne or wine yeast.

I do not know from personal experience!

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If you check out the Brewing Network, there's a show with a guy named Shea Comfort who did a great job explaining the differences in wine yeast and beer yeast. He even mentions the fact that Saison yeast craps out at 1.030 because it was originally a red wine strain and doesn't ferment higher sugars very efficiently.

Yeah, it's amazing, but 95% of the stuff I know about beer is from the internet. It's amazing any of it was drinkable!

If we are still talking about bottling I like T-58 for Belgians.

BW