Refermenting a Belgian Tripel

[Ziller]

I have brewed two six gallon batches of a Belgian Tripel for some friends' wedding. I'm determined to get it right. I've recently read Heironomous' How to brew like a monk and I'm trying to replicate the Trappist style of ale. After primary is complete I'm going to lager for three weeks at 32 degrees F. My primary yeast was a starter made from Wyeast 3787. The fermentation was more than vigorous and dropped the gravity from 1.085 to 1.029 in three days.
The Trappists all add more of the primary yeast as well as priming sugar at bottling. I will be using 750 ml heavy duty bottles, but I'm still afraid of over pitching. My question to you all is: How much fresh 3787 should I add to each batch at bottling? Thanks in advance!

 

[day_trippr]

The risk of exploding bottles is more a function of the amount of sugar extant in the beer than the amount of yeast, and usually when something bad happens it's because the beer was bottled before it had reached terminal gravity. Are you confident that the beer has finished fermenting before you progress to bottling?

Anyway, fwiw, back when I bottled I drew roughly a 1/4 cup of yeast from the fermentor into the bottling bucket - which was mostly for my own peace of mind as I expect there was plenty enough yeast still in suspension to accomplish the conditioning task...

Cheers!

 

[DuncB]

Chapter 9 of brew like a monk explains the carbonation targets in vols.
If you haven't spunded to a starting volume of co2 then your starting carbonation will be based on max ferment temp.
Then use your brew software or other calculator to work out the amount of sugar to add.
Cell count needed varies from Belgian brewery to brewery and these figures are also in chapter 9.
I used @doug293cz calculator to calculate sugar needed when the beer is carbonated and I counter pressure filled onto sugar and fresh yeast.
Probably will be enough residual yeast without topping up but it might take a bit more time.
I've used the counter pressure bottling onto dextrose and or extra yeast for double, tripel and Belgian golden strong. It has worked very well.

 

[VTMongoose]

The most important thing to avoid bottle bombs is firstly to ensure the beer is at terminal gravity before bottling, and secondly to limit infections during bottling.

Personally I do not repitch the primary strain during bottling. I pitch either half a sachet or a full sachet of CBC-1 which is a dirt cheap bottle conditioning yeast that carbonates fast and super clean, and that is what I would recommend.

 

[Jeroen79]

32F is 0°C, that is way to low to lager the beer, the norm is more like 2 weeks at 20-25°C and then another 2 or 3 weeks 12°C.
Then just add 6-9g/L of botteling sugar and 2grams of botteling yeast for 20L.