Secondary or Bottle Condition

[sok454]

3.5 weeks ago I did a BIAB/Partial mash Russian Imperial. It is at its FG and has been for about 1-2 weeks now. My questions is I want to condition this beer but not sure if I should do it in a secondary or do it in the bottles?

What is the preferred method?


My second question is should I pitch some yeast when I bottle just to make sure that I have enough to carb up the beer? I don't want to wait 4 months and then have uncarbed beer due to my yeast being so beat down from the 1.115 OG.

Thanks!

 

[KepowOb]

3.5 weeks ago I did a BIAB/Partial mash Russian Imperial. It is at its FG and has been for about 1-2 weeks now. My questions is I want to condition this beer but not sure if I should do it in a secondary or do it in the bottles?

What is the preferred method?


My second question is should I pitch some yeast when I bottle just to make sure that I have enough to carb up the beer? I don't want to wait 4 months and then have uncarbed beer due to my yeast being so beat down from the 1.115 OG.

Thanks!

I'm new to all of this, so others will certainly chime in with some better advice... but my understanding as far as adding more yeast when you bottle is that it's not necessary. A lot of the yeast will have settled, but they'll be enough in suspension to carb your beer... specially if you're doing something that's going to be bottled for so long.

As far as conditioning it goes, I think it pretty much comes down to personal preference.

 

[budwhite5]

I'm also new, but I find bottle conditioning good. 5g of sugar per 500ml bottle seems to be enough to get good carbonation. I use bugle style bottles and get a real good 'pop' when I open them. Next I'm trying to master head retention. Bought some Irish moss for my next batch.

 

[sok454]

The issue is my OG was 1.115 and pretty much destroyed most of the yeast.

A buddy in my club has the stuff to force carb and will let me use it... but i'd prefer to do it on my own.

I've had good luck with lower OG beers 1.080< and the simple sugar solution and utilizing hte existing yeast.

 

[BigFloyd]

I'd pitch some WLP099 at priming and bottle condition this sort of brew.

 

[Chadwick]

The issue is my OG was 1.115 and pretty much destroyed most of the yeast.

A buddy in my club has the stuff to force carb and will let me use it... but i'd prefer to do it on my own.

I've had good luck with lower OG beers 1.080< and the simple sugar solution and utilizing hte existing yeast.

I did a barleywine not long ago with an OG of 1.12 using US-05 yeast. My final gravity was 1.030 and I expected it to take months to carb up. It didn't take months. 3 weeks later I opened one up to find it was perfect. I didn't add any yeast at bottling. It was fine. I'll bet your beer will be fine too.

 

[DocScott]

I dont' think you'll need more yeast, but no way to know. If you want to be safe, add a little at bottling.

In terms of aging it...I had the same question about my golden strong ale last week. I don't have an open carboy at this time, so rather than aging in plastic bucket which risks oxidation, I was advised to bottle it. If you have an open carboy, the choice would be yours. I dont' see much benefit to bulk aging this though. I'd bottle it and hide it in the back of a closet for 4 months.

 

[sok454]

Thanks guys! Another guy in my group did a barley wine and had no issues with it bottle carbing. I was 1.115 to 1.034 so I think I'll just bottle it and let it sit for a few months... of course I'll have to check a bottle here and there!

 

[sok454]

Well finally got around to bottling the RussiAn Imperial today. Looked good. Nice aroma. Now just gotta try and keep my hands off of it for the next few months!