Conditioning Yeast preparation

[Architect-Dave]

I have a very heavy beer that I will be bottling in a few days. It is recommended to add a little CB-1 conditioning yeast to the bottling bucket before bottling, along with he priming sugar. one of the methods of getting the CB-1 yeast working is to make a small starter of 1/4 cup DME with 3 cups water, boil, cool, add the yeast and go. In the past, I added sterilized water to a sterilized flask, added the powdered yeast and ran it on my stir plate for a few hours to create a liquid to add to the bucket. Sprinkling the CB-1 straight into the bucket does not allow it to dissolve. I was wondering if when I boil the water with the priming sugar For conditioning, can I add the DME to that and then use that entire mixture when it is cooled to pitch the yeast into and stir it for a few hours? Or, will the priming sugar solution be too much for the yeast?

 

[rmr9]

I would be concerned with the carbonation level, unless you’ve built that into your calculations

 

[mac_1103]

If simply rehydrating the CBC-1 in water worked for you in the past, why change your process?

You don't want to rehydrate in the priming sugar solution as the osmotic shock could kill yeast. I suppose you could prime with DME instead of sugar (6.4 ounces will give you 2.5 volumes of CO2 in a five gallon batch), but I think the recommendation would still be to rehydrate the yeast in sterile water before adding it to the boiled and cooled DME. Personally, I just add a little beer (not wort) to the rehydrated yeast and mix it well before adding it to the bucket.

 

[hotbeer]

You don't trust the recommendation that Lallemand has for priming and conditioning?

https://www.lallemandbrewing.com/wp...bestpractices-Bottle-conditioning-Digital.pdf

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

A "yeast are hearty' anecdotal: Historically ...

... with big beers (and small batches), I pitch dry CBC-1 directly into the bottle (along with the priming sugar).​

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[mac_1103]

... with big beers (and small batches), I pitch dry CBC-1 directly into the bottle (along with the priming sugar).

Yeah, I think it's pretty clear that Lallemand's recommendations about rehydrating and mixing are mostly about getting the yeast distributed relatively uniformly before bottling rather than maintaining yeast health. After all, they recommend direct dry pitching for primary (cider) fermentation.

 

[Architect-Dave]

I was only curious about that combined sugar/water and yeast thing just to save some time. I do not have San issue with how it work out in the past…was more a ‘testing the waters’ sort of thing.