Bottle Conditioning 11% barley wine - do i need to add more yeast?

Hello Everyone,

Currently I have american Barley wine in the primary fermenter (30 days) that I will be transferring over to the secondary later this week. I will age it for an additional 3 months, dry hop the last two weeks, and then bottle condition the beer. My barley wine has a SG of 1.105 and is currently sitting at 1.020, ~11%abv. My question is due to the high level of alcohol will I be able to bottle condition this beer with just priming sugar or will i have to pitch some fresh yeast as well? If so how much yeast should I add to the bottling bucket? and can I use the same yeast I fermented with (Nottingham) or do i need something like champagne yeast?

I do have the ability to force carbonate this beer in a keg and then bottle using my Blichmann beer gun, but i feel that this beer would age allot better in the bottle with natural carbonation.

For a little insurance it would not hurt to add some yeast at bottling. 2 grams or about 1/4 pack of champagne yeast works great. I use EC-118. Rehydrated. I have done this with my wheat wine, quad, doppelbock, and quint that I brewed for this winter. I also used this method to unsure carbonation of a sour that spent 9 months aging.

NTexBrewer said:

For a little insurance it would not hurt to add some yeast at bottling. 2 grams or about 1/4 pack of champagne yeast works great. I use EC-118. Rehydrated. I have done this with my wheat wine, quad, doppelbock, and quint that I brewed for this winter. I also used this method to unsure carbonation of a sour that spent 9 months aging.

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where did you get the 2 grams (or 1/4 pack) of champagne yeast from? is this a rule of thumb for 5 gallons? Just to make I understand your process you boil a set amount of corn sugar in 2 cups water to achieve desired carbonation level, add this to your bottling bucket, and then add the re hydrated EC-118 yeast, very gently stir and then begin to bottle and cap the beer?

On a side note how long did it take for your bigger beers to carbonate using this method?

Thank

rwing7486 said:

where did you get the 2 grams (or 1/4 pack) of champagne yeast from? is this a rule of thumb for 5 gallons? Just to make I understand your process you boil a set amount of corn sugar in 2 cups water to achieve desired carbonation level, add this to your bottling bucket, and then add the re hydrated EC-118 yeast, very gently stir and then begin to bottle and cap the beer?

On a side note how long did it take for your bigger beers to carbonate using this method?

Thank

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I'm guessing it is a rule of thumb. I found the reference to 2 grams while researching bottling my sour. Basically someone said it worked for them so I tried it and it worked for me. How you described adding the yeast and sugar is how I do it.

I've been patient with my big beer and try not to test one until it has been conditioning for 2 months in the bottle.

My Wheat Wine is 10% and it seemed to be properly carbonated at 2 months
My Quad is 10.24% and it did not seem to be fully carbonated at 2 months. Next week will be 3 months in the bottle so I should check one soon.
My Quint is 15.5% and I'll test one at the end of this month.
My Dopplebock is 8.9% and I just bottled that on last week.

I'll try to remember to report back on how the Quint seems to be at the end of the month.

NTexBrewer said:

I'm guessing it is a rule of thumb. I found the reference to 2 grams while researching bottling my sour. Basically someone said it worked for them so I tried it and it worked for me. How you described adding the yeast and sugar is how I do it.

I've been patient with my big beer and try not to test one until it has been conditioning for 2 months in the bottle.

My Wheat Wine is 10% and it seemed to be properly carbonated at 2 months
My Quad is 10.24% and it did not seem to be fully carbonated at 2 months. Next week will be 3 months in the bottle so I should check one soon.
My Quint is 15.5% and I'll test one at the end of this month.
My Dopplebock is 8.9% and I just bottled that on last week.

I'll try to remember to report back on how the Quint seems to be at the end of the month.

Click to expand...

if you are only using two grams of the EC118 about how much water to you re hydrate with? My guess is you wait about 15 minutes give it a gentle stir and pitch into your bottling bucket with the sugar? Also after you pitch the yeast and sugar into the bottling bucket do you wait a few minutes to start bottling or do you begin right away?

Sorry for the 21 questions

I use about 1/3 cup of water and rehydrate for 15 minutes or longer. Add to bucket with priming sugar and stir gently to combine. I just use warm tap water to rehydrate. If that freaks you out you could boil some water and cool it down. I use the inner part of my racking cane to stir everything since it is sanitized.

A few grams of yeast is plenty for bottle-carbing, when you consider it only needs to chew through 4 or 5 ounces of priming sugar, not 5 gallons of wort. A buck for a packet of champagne yeast is cheap insurance on big beers.

NTexBrewer said:

I use about 1/3 cup of water and rehydrate for 15 minutes or longer. Add to bucket with priming sugar and stir gently to combine. I just use warm tap water to rehydrate. If that freaks you out you could boil some water and cool it down. I use the inner part of my racking cane to stir everything since it is sanitized.

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That's my exact process what I bottle with priming sugar. My only question since I have never done it with adding yeast to the bottling bucket as well is after gently stirring do you let the beer sit for 5 to 10 minutes before you start bottling or just start bottling right away? Only reason I ask is I don't know if I need to give the yeast time to attach/find the dextrose

NTexBrewer said:

For a little insurance it would not hurt to add some yeast at bottling. 2 grams or about 1/4 pack of champagne yeast works great. I use EC-118. Rehydrated. I have done this with my wheat wine, quad, doppelbock, and quint that I brewed for this winter. I also used this method to unsure carbonation of a sour that spent 9 months aging.

Click to expand...

Don't you worry about the champagne yeast fermenting the residual sugars in the barley wine and creating a bottle bomb and/or drying the beer out? I always thought you were supposed to repitch with the same yeast you used for fermentation, to ensure the attenuation wouldn't change much. (But I have never repitched, so I don't really know.)

hvjackson said:

Don't you worry about the champagne yeast fermenting the residual sugars in the barley wine and creating a bottle bomb and/or drying the beer out? I always thought you were supposed to repitch with the same yeast you used for fermentation, to ensure the attenuation wouldn't change much. (But I have never repitched, so I don't really know.)

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I would be worried about this too. I'm about to do a Barleywine, theoretically a touch over 10%, but champagne yeast's tolerance is 13-15% so I wouldn't do it in that case, personally. But if people have good experience with it, that's better than my theoretical approach.

hvjackson said:

Don't you worry about the champagne yeast fermenting the residual sugars in the barley wine and creating a bottle bomb and/or drying the beer out? I always thought you were supposed to repitch with the same yeast you used for fermentation, to ensure the attenuation wouldn't change much. (But I have never repitched, so I don't really know.)

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Champagne yeast is even more fussy about what it eats than what your beer yeast is so there won't be anything it likes left when you get to FG. Champagne yeast wants simple sugars, the kind you would add as priming sugars. It won't go eat any of the garbage left in your barleywine.

RM-MN said:

Champagne yeast is even more fussy about what it eats than what your beer yeast is so there won't be anything it likes left when you get to FG. Champagne yeast wants simple sugars, the kind you would add as priming sugars. It won't go eat any of the garbage left in your barleywine.

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I assume By garbage you mean tasty malt and hop aroma

rwing7486 said:

I assume By garbage you mean tasty malt and hop aroma

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If you pay attention to people drinking champagne, they would turn their noses up at your beer and call it garbage. :cross:

rwing7486 said:

That's my exact process what I bottle with priming sugar. My only question since I have never done it with adding yeast to the bottling bucket as well is after gently stirring do you let the beer sit for 5 to 10 minutes before you start bottling or just start bottling right away? Only reason I ask is I don't know if I need to give the yeast time to attach/find the dextrose

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I do not let it sit. After my initial stirring I start bottling.

I bottled a 14.6% barleywine back in May. I used 1-1/4 cup DME and no extra yeast at bottling. The beer has a great head now.
My initial yeast was 2 packs of US05 for appx 4 weeks then a pack of EC1118 when it got down to 1.02. Let that ride another couple weeks. Final gravity of 1.018.

I used 1g or so of fermentis F2 in my imperial stout.