Conditioning with different yeast

I was just wondering about the techniques and risks invovled with filtering out as much of the original fermenting yeast before bottling and pitching a new yeast with a little sugar to possibly produce a different carbonation. I was thinking about carbonating with a Champagne yeast but was kind of worried about suspended yeast that might compete with the new yeast. Also, what kind of filters are good at picking out the original yeast?

To my knowledge, you won't get a different type of carbonation with different yeast. There is only one type of CO2 out there. If you want it carbed up like a champagne, calculate your carbonation to 3.5 or 4 volumes.


If you do this, you MUST bottle in thicker glass bottles. Champagne, and the similar bottles most corked Belgian beer comes in. If not, you will have bottle bombs!

The only "different" carbonation I know of is beer gas. It has a percentage of nitrogen, which creates the creamy thick head on a Guiness or similar stout.

To filter the original yeast, you will need a sub-micron filter. You can get 0.5 micron filters that fit in a typical house canister filter. Plan on doing a 5 micron pass, then a 0.5 micron pass. Otherwise the 0.5 will clog quickly.

Personally, I don't think it would be worth the effort.

if you want different carbonation, vary the priming sugar volume, not the yeast.

As the others said, carbonation is carbonation whether it's beer, soda, etc- it's all co2 dissolved in solution. The amount of carbonation varies though, which changes the mouthfeel.

I'd be very concerned about pitching a wine yeast (like champagne yeast) into a beer and then bottling. The reason is that champagne yeast will go up to 18% ABV, taking the beer much drier than you may have intended. Not only will this dry out the beer, but bottle bombs would be a real possibility.

There are times when a wine yeast is appropriate in a beer, of course- high gravity brews for one. But it's not done just at bottling, it's done to bring the final gravity down to a reasonable level.

I'm glad you all responded or else I could've had schrapnel and wasted beer!! How much should I cut back the priming sugar syrup if I wanted to get those finer bubbles/fizz that occurs in alot of stouts?

I used to add lager yeast to my ales, this way I could condition them in cold cellar, I had no room form that in the apatrament. But some of them got over-carbonated, I'm not sure if it was the yeast or improper fermentation schedule (I used 1-2-3 scheme that days). Anyway, I don't do this any more.

joshimus said:

I'm glad you all responded or else I could've had schrapnel and wasted beer!! How much should I cut back the priming sugar syrup if I wanted to get those finer bubbles/fizz that occurs in alot of stouts?

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Are you talking about stouts on tap? That's done with a nitrogen set up, which you don't get in bottling homebrew. That gives it a creamy, fine head. Guiness has a widget thing in it to dispense the N2.

You can't add a widget, of course, but you can prime according to this chart/calculator: http://byo.com/resources/carbonation

Then wait. A longer bottling conditioning time also helps with the carbonation perception.

Nice, thanks for the link.

Piotr said:

I used to add lager yeast to my ales, this way I could condition them in cold cellar, I had no room form that in the apatrament. But some of them got over-carbonated, I'm not sure if it was the yeast or improper fermentation schedule (I used 1-2-3 scheme that days). Anyway, I don't do this any more.

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Lager yeast can ferment certain types of sugars which are not fermentable by ale yeast. This will result in higher carbonation levels.

AdIn said:

Lager yeast can ferment certain types of sugars which are not fermentable by ale yeast. This will result in higher carbonation levels.

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Theoreticaly yes. But some german commercial breweries do that and it works somehow.