1 month in secondary, do I need to repitch yeast?

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Lemontato

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Hello,

I used a pack of dry yeast for this batch and it sat in primary for 1 week and now secondary for 1 month (4 weeks and a half to be precise), should I repitch some yeast before bottling or am I good to go and I can bottle it and just wait longer for it to be properly carbonated?

Thanks!
 
If you are not adding anything like fruit, next time leave in primary for at least 3 weeks. I had some in primary at 62* for like 6 weeks and when bottled it was as clear as if I had cold crashed.
 
There will always be some yeast left in there, so bottles will carbonate.
I'd suggest pitching more yeast though....it's quick, easy and cheap and you'll get much faster carbonation. I have recently started pitching fresh yeast when I bottle all of my brews and am really happy with the results (I've been using S-23, even for my ales). You only need about a teaspoon of dry yeast hydrated in a bit of cool boiled water, added to the bottling bucket. A packet of yeast does about 4 batches.
 
First couple of times I used finings, I had the same worries that there wouldn't be enough yeast to carb the bottled beer. My fears were groundless. Suspended yeast abounds. Scary really. I wonder if microbioligists sleep soundly or dream of weird stuff indeed.
 
(I've been using S-23, even for my ales).

Be careful using a lager strain with ales at bottling time as lager yeasts can ferment sugars that ale yeasts can't. I would recommend using the same yeast you fermented the batch with and if you can't for whatever reason, at least using an ale yeast for ales and a lager yeast for lagers.

One other thing to think about when doing this is choosing a yeast with approximately the same properties as the yeast you did your main fermentation with. For example, if you used a lower attenuating yeast then pitch a higher attenuating strain with your priming sugar you could get bottle bombs. Just something to be aware of.
 
There will always be some yeast left in there, so bottles will carbonate.
I'd suggest pitching more yeast though....it's quick, easy and cheap and you'll get much faster carbonation.

Cheap? By volume of weight, yeast is the most expensive ingredient in brewing. that stuff is almost as expensive as beluga caviar.
 
Be careful using a lager strain with ales at bottling time as lager yeasts can ferment sugars that ale yeasts can't. I would recommend using the same yeast you fermented the batch with and if you can't for whatever reason, at least using an ale yeast for ales and a lager yeast for lagers.

One other thing to think about when doing this is choosing a yeast with approximately the same properties as the yeast you did your main fermentation with. For example, if you used a lower attenuating yeast then pitch a higher attenuating strain with your priming sugar you could get bottle bombs. Just something to be aware of.

I started using lager yeast for bottling ales following a recommendation from a (very experienced) brewer at a local craft brewery - he still homebrews and has always used lager yeast for bottling. It works well.
 
A quarter of a packet of dry yeast for an entire brew. Not expensive.

There is plenty of yeast suspended in the beer to carbonate bottles. It's rarely is issue of not enough yeast but not enough food for the yeast. Adding sugar, good. Adding yeast, you'll end up with a yeastie flavor.
 
Yes, I have tried it. Brewing is science and I never guess at science. I hypothesize, theorize, experiment and draw a conclusion. When I tried it, there was too much yeast.
 
Recently I had my first experiance with no carbonation in a RIS i brewed. It sat for over a month and was racked once on top of oak chips. Months later and no carbonation whatsoever. Yesterday I popped the caps open, sprinkled abit of US-05 into each bottle and recapped with new caps. Im not sure what went wrong with this one, I never add additional yeast and never had a problem even with a week of cold crashing at 1.5C. There are just too many variables at play.
 
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