About half of the bottles aren't carbonating... add yeast?

[petrolSpice]

Having this issue which I've never had before. I brewed a IIPA that ended up being around 10.5% using WLP099 "Super San Diego" yeast. I cold crashed it with gelatin for about 10 days and it really cleared up nicely.

It was bottled about 8 weeks ago. At 4 weeks there was little carbonation so I put them in my chest freezer with a heater set to 77F in addition to flipping them over to get the sediment back into solution. After a couple weeks I opened a couple bottles and they had carbonated nicely. Then I opened 3 more a week later and they were all flat and tasted overly sweet.

My question is, if I open up a bottle that's flat, can I just sprinkle in some yeast and recap it? If so, how much yeast? Will US-05 work?

My thought is to rehydrate the yeast in a mason jar with like 1 cup of boiled/cooled water and store it in the fridge, and use a 1/2 Tsp of the liquid or so per bottle. Or is there a better way?

 

[RPh_Guy]

Seems like it would be simplest to pour all the bottles back into your bottling bucket.
Keep track of how many bottles were carbonated because you will want to add priming sugar for that volume.

I suspect adding yeast at bottling will probably give the beer a yeasty taste... and there is probably still live yeast in any of the bottles that carbonated. However you might want to add just a bit to make sure. I doubt anyone call tell you exactly how much to add, so hope for the best!

I'm no expert so take my advice with a grain of salt.

Cheers

 

[McGarnigle]

I think the problem is the yeast may have eaten all the residual sugar, but then the CO2 escaped. So new yeast won't have anything to eat.

 

[petrolSpice]

I think the problem is the yeast may have eaten all the residual sugar, but then the CO2 escaped. So new yeast won't have anything to eat.

I'm not sure how the CO2 would have escaped... That would mean the bottles were incorrectly capped which has never happened before. I'm using the same capper, same bottles, and same caps as I have in the past. And I've brewed another batch since this one and so far they are perfectly carbonated.

Also, the ones that aren't carbonated are unmistakably sweet, while those that did carbonate are not sweet. This batch also has very little sediment in the bottles, leading me to believe that there is not enough yeast in the bottles.

What I may do is pour my next un-carbonated bottle into a re-usable plastic bottle with a screw cap, add a pinch of yeast, and then cap it with a pressure gauge.

 

[BudBernerBrewer]

need a lil starter or no oxy for yeast??? idk

 

[dantose]

A little shake of yeast champagne yeast per bottle should work. I haven't done it myself but had a brew buddy who had to do that once.

 

[petrolSpice]

So I found a solution that is working so far. Anytime I open an uncarbonated bottle from the fridge, I sprinkle in a small amount of champagne yeast, about 10-20 "grains", swirl it around, and let it sit for about a week. Seems to help it carbonate up well. Not quite as much carbonation as I want though. I may need to add a tiny amount of sugar as well.