bottle refermentation

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Mapleroots

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I'm wondering if I can take the yeast from my primary, clean It and use it to bottle referment. This is my plan, I made a 5 gal batch of imperial wheat and am currently fermenting in a primary. I want to rack that off into a secondary and rack another five gal. of the same recipe on top to the yeast and trub sediment from the first batch, ferment for 2 weeks and rack this into a secondary. Then I want to clean the yeast from the original primary and use that to bottle referment in another two weeks. Is this going to wear the yeast cells out? please give some feedback from anyone who has bottle refermented.
 
I don't know what you mean by "Bottle Refermenting." Are you talking about "Bottle Conditioned Beers?" All non forced carbed homebrew is bottle conditioned...you add SUGAR, not yeast to the beer at bottling time. There is more than enough yeast present in the beer to ferment the tiny bit of sugar needed to carbonate the beer.

It's rare to ever have to add any more yeast to a beer at botttling time, unless it is a huge beer that has been bulk aged for a year or more, where it is pretty clear that the yeast is tuckered out.

I have a pretty detailed blog explaining this here; Revvy's Blog; Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning.

But honestly I have never come across he term "Bottle Refermentation." like I said fermentation is complete at bottle time and that's why we add sugar to the present yeast...Not any more yeast.
 
I'm talking about conditioning my bottles by adding 1/4 cup of dextrose to about a 1/4 of the 10 gal. of beer that I'm making and reusing the yeast that I've taken from my primary and refermenting in 1L 9 oz bottles and champagne corking them them. You have never heard of this?
 
I'm talking about conditioning my bottles by adding 1/4 cup of dextrose to about a 1/4 of the 10 gal. of beer that I'm making and reusing the yeast that I've taken from my primary and refermenting in 1L 9 oz bottles and champagne corking them them. You have never heard of this?

It sounds like you are talking about carbonating/bottle conditioning your beer...Like we all do...Normally we boil about 2 cups of water (some use beer) with about approximately 5 ounces of corn sugar (or it's rough equivelant in malt extract" per 5 gallon batch and mixing that to our beer in a bottling bucket and then bottling our beer....

.Again, there's no need to add any more yeast to the beer if the beer is finished fermenting.

I've bottled belgian saisons in champagne bottles and never added anymore yeast. THere's plenty of yeast left behind in the beer to do the job.

Like I said I go over the mechanics of it in the lonk I sent you....
 
I just googled "Bottle Refermentation" and you are basically using an archaic or even european term to mean what 'cat and I are talking about....Carbonation/Bottle Conditioning. Technically it's not really a re-fermentation, that would imply that the beer is changing somehow....but like I said it is already fermented....what you are fermenting is the new sugar you added at bottling time, with the yeast already present in it......

Unibroue uses the term...but really it's still just carbonation and conditioning....and the only time people add a new strain of yeast at bottling is if they have killed off the existing strain, either by brewing a huge beer and bulk aging it, or killing the existing yeast off (usually to disquise the fermentation strain from people like us who would grow it) and adding fresh yeast.....But we rarely would do that.
 
I've read that the new yeast cells helps to clear up the beer even more in the bottled stage? but I could be wrong, this is just what I've heard and read.
Refermentation of beer in bottles is basically a simple process. Mature beer is mixed with yeast and fermentable extract and subsequently bottled. The extract is then fermented over a period of two or more weeks in a "warm chamber". The refermented beers should have obtained extra organoleptic properties. The major critical factor of refermentation is the physiological condition of the added yeast. To overcome some of the industrial difficulties associated with providing proper yeast in good condition at the right moment, the possibility of using dried yeast was investigated.
Approximately 10 percent of all beers produced in Belgium are refermented in the bottle after the primary fermentation. Before bottling, additional sugar and yeast are added to the beer, after which the beer is refermented during several weeks. The refermented beer is then fully saturated with carbon dioxide and has a richer flavour profile and prolonged flavour stability, compared to non-refermented beer. Although refermentation seems a simple process, it is not easy for a yeast population to carry out the process of refermentation in an efficient way. Failed refermentations, non-suitable for sale, mean financial bad luck for breweries. Also knowledge of the flocculation behaviour of yeast and flavour formation during refermentation is still scarce. The aim of this project is to completely understand and control the process of refermentation, with emphasis on yeast physiology and flavour formation.
Just a few examples of bottle refermentation, But I really whant to talk to some one who has experimented with this process and can tell me if I can was my yeast from the primary and use it for the cause. Thanks
 
I've heard this "archiac or even european" :) term used before. As far as I can tell it is exactly the same as bottle conditioning. The difference, as the OP suggested, is in the pitching of new yeast at the time of bottling. This rather archiac and european tradition was perhaps used to protect special "house strains" of yeast. In homebrewing it is not necessary because, as others have said, there is enough yeast to carbonate your beer in the bottle without adding more.
 
But honestly I have never come across he term "Bottle Refermentation." like I said fermentation is complete at bottle time and that's why we add sugar to the present yeast...Not any more yeast.

I believe the term is used quite a bit in "Brew Like a Monk" and as mentioned by another poster, a lot of those breweries do add fresh yeast, whether to protect their proprietary house yeast or because they are plumb tuckered out.

Perhaps for home brewers it is entirely unnecessary, or at least, not value added when considering other things of a lower hanging variety we could be doing to improve our batches. I have seen quite a few recipes call for adding fresh yeast, in particular, the Clone Brews books.
 
very nice thread my man, now that is some useful information. I might take his advice on the complications of this method for an inexperienced brewer, but will definitely keep this in mind for some future brews, or maybe get ballsy and just try it. Thanks all, I appreciate the comments and the motivation to look deeper into this method.
 
Here is an article on refermentation in the bottle:

http://***********/stories/techniqu...212-on-the-yeast-guide-to-bottle-conditioning
 
Funny you should ask tonight. I am part way through a bottle of Gouden Carolus Ambrio 1471, a commercial Belgian amber ale. On its label, immediately after the bit of history about being the town ale of Mechelen, is the sentence "Refermented in the bottle".

It is really rather highly carbonated. However, I doubt that they inoculated any extra yeast at bottling. If they did, it must have been a rather small amount. I have seen much more yeast sediment in plenty of other bottle conditioned beers, including Fullers 1845 last night.

I did put the cap back on the last ounce, in case I decide to use the yeast. Pretty tasty!
 
I'm not happy with priming the beer. It takes a long time, over 6 weeks to clear out the diacetyl it produced during refermentation. Next brew I'm gonna add yeast and sugars to condition the beer to see if it changes anything. From what I heard it speeds the process and while the fresh yeast is still stressed by the alcohol, it's still more healthy then the one left in the suspension.
 
What if I were to lager or cold crash, should I re - pitch some yeast?

Probably not. If you lagered very cold for a long time (sometimes I do 12 weeks at 32 degrees), then you could add 1/3 package of dry yeast to your cooled priming solution just to ensure quick and even carbonation, but otherwise just cold crashing or keeping the beer lagering short term would not impact the yeast health.
 
You should probably be fine. Most homebrewers just roll with what they have, and the bottle conditioning goes fine.

Pro brewers, OTOH, usually add yeast at bottling, from what I've read. Here is a powerpoint from Duvel/Boulevard about how they bottle condition their beers. Boulevard uses dry yeast for all their beers.

http://www.craftbrewersconference.com/wp-content/uploads/2012_Neven_bottle-conditioning.pdf

As far as using different yeast strands goes, here is a cool paper on refermenting with different yeast strands in the bottle:

"Dominance and influence of selected Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains on the analytical profile of craft beer refermentation."

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jib.133/epdf

From the conclusions:

"In the present study, the four selected S. cerevisiae strains, DBVPG 2168, DBVPG 2170, DBVPG 2187 and L951, did dominate the bottle refermentation process, thus taking over from the S-05 starter strain used in the primary fermentation."
 
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