smashed4
Well-Known Member
My belgian quad will soon be ready for bottling and I am planning this step carefully since I believe it is the trickiest.. Getting a high level of carbonation on a 11% ABV beer is not easy..
Simply tossing in some dextrose on top of that tired yeast is a hit or miss.. you might be lucky and the yeast will still be viable or you end up with flat bottles, a very common problem for homebrewers..
Please share your experience, good or bad, if you ever attempted to bottle condition beers of 9% or more. Please be as precise as possible..
I can start with my previous Triple, 9.5% ABV. I made a 3 cup starter of the same yeast used for primary fermentation (Wyeast Canadian/Belgian ale, aka Unibroue yeast) that I mixed with the finished beer and 0.5 pound of dextrose for a 5 gallon. I would have expected this amount of dextrose to give me well over 3 volume of carbonation.... But even after 10 weeks of bottle conditioning at 70F, the carbonation was more similar to an English bitter.. not totally flat, but nowhere near as spritzy as I wanted it..
One thing I noticed is the larger bottles have a bit more carbonation.. There is a definitive carbonation difference between a 12 and 22 ounce bottle... Not sure why though. This might explain why Chimay gives different names to their beers depending on the bottle size.. seems to make a lot of sense..
In order to improve quality of my bottle conditioning for the Quad, I am considering:
- Using only larger bottles, since this gave me best results in the past (for unknown reasons)
- Pitching a fresh dose of Safbrew T-58 has it seems to be a popular choice for bottle conditioning of big belgians. Not sure if I should sprinkle the beer, re-hydrate or make a starter with it....
- Add more priming sugar.
Also I am not sure if I should to a long (cold) conditioning of the beer before bottling it, or bottle it faster so the primary yeast is still active and in suspension when I bottle.. The problem is that if I cold condition for 2 months, most of the yeast will have settled and re-fermentation in the bottle might be difficult? Adding fresh yeast could solve this problem, but I am afraid the fresh yeast added to a conditioned 11.5% beer will simply go dormant in the bottle and do nothing..
Sorry for the long post..
Simply tossing in some dextrose on top of that tired yeast is a hit or miss.. you might be lucky and the yeast will still be viable or you end up with flat bottles, a very common problem for homebrewers..
Please share your experience, good or bad, if you ever attempted to bottle condition beers of 9% or more. Please be as precise as possible..
I can start with my previous Triple, 9.5% ABV. I made a 3 cup starter of the same yeast used for primary fermentation (Wyeast Canadian/Belgian ale, aka Unibroue yeast) that I mixed with the finished beer and 0.5 pound of dextrose for a 5 gallon. I would have expected this amount of dextrose to give me well over 3 volume of carbonation.... But even after 10 weeks of bottle conditioning at 70F, the carbonation was more similar to an English bitter.. not totally flat, but nowhere near as spritzy as I wanted it..
One thing I noticed is the larger bottles have a bit more carbonation.. There is a definitive carbonation difference between a 12 and 22 ounce bottle... Not sure why though. This might explain why Chimay gives different names to their beers depending on the bottle size.. seems to make a lot of sense..
In order to improve quality of my bottle conditioning for the Quad, I am considering:
- Using only larger bottles, since this gave me best results in the past (for unknown reasons)
- Pitching a fresh dose of Safbrew T-58 has it seems to be a popular choice for bottle conditioning of big belgians. Not sure if I should sprinkle the beer, re-hydrate or make a starter with it....
- Add more priming sugar.
Also I am not sure if I should to a long (cold) conditioning of the beer before bottling it, or bottle it faster so the primary yeast is still active and in suspension when I bottle.. The problem is that if I cold condition for 2 months, most of the yeast will have settled and re-fermentation in the bottle might be difficult? Adding fresh yeast could solve this problem, but I am afraid the fresh yeast added to a conditioned 11.5% beer will simply go dormant in the bottle and do nothing..
Sorry for the long post..