redosing yeast for bottle conditioning

I have a Belgian Quad that has failed to bottle carb after two months. It's evident at this point that the 10.5% ABV (OG 1.090 and FG 1.009) was enough to knock out the WLP500 before it could handle the carbonation.

So I need to reinoculate in the bottles, which I haven't done before though I have the tools to do so. The dextrose is already dissolved and unconsumed.

What is a good pitching rate for this? Should I stick to the same yeast or go for a higher alcohol tolerance? For the beer itself I went with about 1.5 million cells/ml/degree plato, due to the high gravity. Would I need to match that for the bottle? Would it be more? Less? I'm not sure what effect the presence of alcohol would have on the cell count needed.




Yes, this is a repost from the yeast & fermentation page. I posted this question there a few days ago and got no useful responses.

The cells/mL/P is for cells going into fresh wort, not beer high in waste products. I would get something like champagne, whiskey, cali ale or another highly alcohol tolerant yeast. As long as you added the right amount of sugar, it is still there ready to be consumed. The problem is going to be whether the new dormant yeast (dry or from a vial) will wake up in the bottle and go to work without having been harvested from a beer which is at the late stages of fermentation. This is why a lot of people either over pitch, or ferment a huge starter and pitch the healthy slurry when doing high ABV beers. Yeast needs time to acclimate to high alcohol levels. I would try to at least get a 10 fold wort increases every 24 hours until you think you have enough slurry at the bottom.

kevmoron said:

I have a Belgian Quad that has failed to bottle carb after two months. It's evident at this point that the 10.5% ABV (OG 1.090 and FG 1.009) was enough to knock out the WLP500 before it could handle the carbonation.

So I need to reinoculate in the bottles, which I haven't done before though I have the tools to do so. The dextrose is already dissolved and unconsumed.

What is a good pitching rate for this? Should I stick to the same yeast or go for a higher alcohol tolerance? For the beer itself I went with about 1.5 million cells/ml/degree plato, due to the high gravity. Would I need to match that for the bottle? Would it be more? Less? I'm not sure what effect the presence of alcohol would have on the cell count needed.

Yes, this is a repost from the yeast & fermentation page. I posted this question there a few days ago and got no useful responses.

Click to expand...

I would go with champagne yeast as it is alcohol tolerant but will not ferment any unconsumed long chained sugars your original yeast may have left behind. If possible, make a healthy starter with plenty of O2 (stir plate on high) and pitch just after the log phase begins (high krausen). This way the yeast are already in reproductive mode, very healthy and ready to go to work. Pitch 3 million cells per ml. For the starter consider only pitching a portion of the commercial pack. 30 million viable cells per ml is a good inoculation rate for a starter and creates many more new cells compared to a higher rate. So if you have a good fresh pack containing 100 billion cells, consider pitching only 1/3 of the pack in 1 liter to get that rate. That said, you may only need a portion of one liter as your starter may produce ~200 billion cells and for the suggested rate you will need 60 billion cells total for 5 gallons of beer. So you could make a 350ml starter but remember to keep the starter inoculation rate at ~30 million cells per ml (viable cells).

Ive had good results using US04 for bottle conditioning. It floccs out like peanut butter so you get a nice clean pour from the bottle once it's conditioned and chilled