Belgian Dark Strong Bottle Conditioning

Greetings fellow brewers, I have some questions that have taken me a while to mull over regarding bottle conditioning. I brewed my first Belgian dark Strong Ale (a 10 gallon batch) and followed the standard procedures for fermentation. It's been aging in two 5 gallon glass carboys at 52 degrees for about 3 months now and I am ready to bottle using the 375ml cork finish bottles. The beer is at 10.5% ABV and, after thiefing some of it out, I like the taste of it now.

My questions are what should I do to get this bottle conditioned perfectly?

Here are my thoughts and I would appreciate any other insight from people who have done something similar.

1. I assume after 3 months that the yeast is toast and I need to pitch more for bottling. Do I use Lallemand's CBC-1 Cask and Bottle Condition yeast or use the White Labs WLP530 Abbey yeast I originally fermented with? How many packets\vials are needed?

2. How much priming sugar should I use? I am getting conflicting info on the carbonation of the Belgian styles. My gut tells me to use a little more than the standard priming sugar packets per 5 gallons, but I don't want to break any bottles over-carbing.

3. I plan on cellaring the bottles in the low 60's for about 6 months. Maybe cooler? Should I go longer or just pop one open every now and then to decide?

Long story short [too late], I don't want to mess this up as there's a whole lot of time and money invested to screw it up now. Any help is appreciated for my sanity check.

 

I'm interested in what others responses will be to your questions. I also have a belgian dark strong that I brewed and is currently aging in an old bourbon barrel. My plan is also to bottle condition, but I haven't bottled in over 2 years. I saw on the Mad Fermentationist's website that he did a belgian dark strong that aged for a couple months before bottling and he didn't mention using new yeast when he bottled. He was only aiming for 1.9 volumes of CO2, which seems low to me for some reason.

Anyway, thank's for posting the questions!

 

I've done these, so this is just based on my experience.

You generally need to pitch new yeast. I use champagne yeast. I usually use about 1/2 a packet for a 5-gallon batch.

I usually carbonate a little higher as well. Last time I used about 5oz for a 5 gallon batch, compared to about 4 oz for a normal batch.

I did my last batch in November 2013. I have them in my basement at about 65F. So far I've opened 2. They get better over time. I'm planning on drinking these for Christmas this year.

 

I'm curious as to why the champagne yeast? Because of the high alcohol tolerance?

 

Yep - because of the high alcohol tolerance.

 

If you're using the heavy corked bottles, you should be fine to carbonate fairly heavily. Six and a half ounces in 5 gallons will get you to 3.3 volumes, which is about what I target for those styles. The 11oz bottles that Belgians come in can also take these pressures, as well as the Grolsch style swingtops. I have bottles carbed like this that have been sitting at room temp in my basement since February, no issues and no bottle bombs. They do need like a week in the fridge to pour reasonably however.

 

Couldn't this be disasterous? If you have a 10% abv beer, sitting at (I assume) 1.022 or so [mine is 1.033 ] wouldn't a champagne yeast plow through this and attempt to make it 1.000, thus giving some serious bottle bombs?

 

Champagne yeast doesn't eat more complicated sugars. The simplest sugars will be the first fermented out by primary yeast, leaving nothing edible for the champagne yeast but the new sugar added for priming.

 

So I'd be ok with using EC-1118 for priming? Its all I have around.

 

Thanks for all the replies. I was thinking around 3 vols for carb. The CBC-1 yeast has a tolerance up to 12% and I have that on hand. Has anyone used this yeast?