Evan!
Well-Known Member
Some of you may know quite well the fact that I have long been preaching the virtues of repitching with dry yeast at bottling time when batches have been in secondary for longer than 6 weeks. This line of thinking was a result of a wheat doppelbock that I brewed last September. It never carbonated, and had been aging for awhile in secondary. I've always assumed all the yeast flocculated and there wasn't enough in the bottle to carbonate with. So, ever since then, I've been preaching and practicing the "6-weeks+, repitch" golden rule.
Now, I take it all back.
You may also remember a hefe and a wit that I brewed a couple months back that are both vastly undercarb'd. Well, on those batches, I was pretty certain it was the DME being very unfermentable (effing laaglander!), so I ordered a bunch of Munton's carb tabs so that I could pop open the bottles and recarb them.
Well, turns out that the bottles, while undercarbonated, are getting a little better. Unfortunately, some of them gush when opened warm, and if I try to put carb tabs in there...well...I'm sure you all have seen the Mentos & Pepsi videos. Even when cold, and I let them vent their co2, they still gush like a madman when I drop the tabs in.
So, I'm just going to deal with a slightly undercarbonated couple of batches and learn my lesson. But I also decided to pop open the remaining bottles of the wheat doppelbock (which is, unlike the other two batches, almost completely flat). I opened a few bottles last week, let them get rid of any carbonation, and drop a few carbtabs in before (quickly - they like to gush once you put those tabs in there!) recapping. I tried a bottle on Saturday. 100% beautiful carbonation!
So, in this light, I'd like to retract my theory on repitching at bottling (with the exception of lagers, until I'm proven wrong on that front too). That stuff has been sitting in bottles since the middle of last september---just about 10 months---and the yeast in the bottle was still viable enough to turn those carbtabs into alcohol and carbonation.
The moral of the story: don't use extract to carb with, if possible, and if you have to, don't use laaglander. In fact, avoid laaglander altogether. You may as well be using maltodextrin or lactose.
Now...one last question for anyone who might know: going back to my wit & hefe, when I chill them down and open them to drink, they're carbonated, like I said, just not as much as I'd like them to be. But when I open any of them if they're warm, it sits there for about 5 seconds not doing anything...then the bubbles start rolling to the top and roiling the trub...then it gushes if I don't recap it. What's going on here?
Now, I take it all back.
You may also remember a hefe and a wit that I brewed a couple months back that are both vastly undercarb'd. Well, on those batches, I was pretty certain it was the DME being very unfermentable (effing laaglander!), so I ordered a bunch of Munton's carb tabs so that I could pop open the bottles and recarb them.
Well, turns out that the bottles, while undercarbonated, are getting a little better. Unfortunately, some of them gush when opened warm, and if I try to put carb tabs in there...well...I'm sure you all have seen the Mentos & Pepsi videos. Even when cold, and I let them vent their co2, they still gush like a madman when I drop the tabs in.
So, I'm just going to deal with a slightly undercarbonated couple of batches and learn my lesson. But I also decided to pop open the remaining bottles of the wheat doppelbock (which is, unlike the other two batches, almost completely flat). I opened a few bottles last week, let them get rid of any carbonation, and drop a few carbtabs in before (quickly - they like to gush once you put those tabs in there!) recapping. I tried a bottle on Saturday. 100% beautiful carbonation!
So, in this light, I'd like to retract my theory on repitching at bottling (with the exception of lagers, until I'm proven wrong on that front too). That stuff has been sitting in bottles since the middle of last september---just about 10 months---and the yeast in the bottle was still viable enough to turn those carbtabs into alcohol and carbonation.
The moral of the story: don't use extract to carb with, if possible, and if you have to, don't use laaglander. In fact, avoid laaglander altogether. You may as well be using maltodextrin or lactose.
Now...one last question for anyone who might know: going back to my wit & hefe, when I chill them down and open them to drink, they're carbonated, like I said, just not as much as I'd like them to be. But when I open any of them if they're warm, it sits there for about 5 seconds not doing anything...then the bubbles start rolling to the top and roiling the trub...then it gushes if I don't recap it. What's going on here?