Add champagne yeast for carb?

[xxguitarist]

My IIPA batch has been sitting for a month in bottles, and has built next to no carbonation. I think I've killed the yeast, as it used 1056 & sat in secondary for ~2 months at 10.8% ABV.
FG was 1018, so I don't think there should be any unfermented sugars left (just the unfermentables), but wanted to make sure that putting a little champagne yeast into each bottle wouldn't over-attenuate and result in bottle bombs/ overcarbonation. I used the standard 5 oz corn sugar in the 5 gal batch.

Plan is to rehydrate a pack of yeast in a sanitized container with sanitized water, and use a sanitized pipette to dose a few drops of the yeast slurry into each bottle, then re-cap.

 

[Nateo]

Champagne yeast, and wine yeast in general, don't eat complex sugars well. There are a couple exceptions, but generally they'll only eat the simple sugars.

You won't get much, if any flavor contribution, but it wouldn't hurt to make sure your champagne yeast is actually a champagne yeast, and not a Champenoise yeast. It should be for making champagne the drink, not from the region of the same name.

 

[xxguitarist]

The yeast is red star pasteur champagne.
I have some sitting around, and know it has rather high alcohol tolerance relative to US05 or similar.

Sounds like what you're saying is, it should work. I'm not looking for any flavor contributions, just some CO2 in the bottles, as my 1056 seems to have given up while sitting in secondary.

 

[FiddleTilDeath]

The champagne can eat more sugars than your ale yeast and I would suspect you run the risk of bottle bombs.

 

[xxguitarist]

The champagne can eat more sugars than your ale yeast and I would suspect you run the risk of bottle bombs.

This was my concern.

Perhaps I need to use ale yeast, then?
Maybe I will take my local microbrewery up on their offer of yeast, then. By my taste they use a fairly generic ale yeast.

 

[norsk]

Had the same problem a few months ago with a big APA I had forgot to add yeast to at bottling. Made a starter with the same yeast and used a large syringe to add a bit into each bottle....one of the better APA's I've made yet. Good luck.

 

[Vance71975]

I would try using Nottingham Dry Yeast. It is fairly tolerant ABV wise and normally works well for this. The only time i have ever got bottle bombs was using wine yeast to carb a beer, so it always makes me nervous.

 

[a10t2]

Champagne yeast will work, but for bottle conditioning I'd use something more flocculant. S-04 or Nottingham, about 2 g per 5 gal, rehydrated and dispensed with a medicine dropper or syringe, would be my choice.

The champagne can eat more sugars than your ale yeast and I would suspect you run the risk of bottle bombs.

That's one of those brewing myths that turns out not to be true. Champagne yeast (and most wine yeasts in general) actually can't ferment some sugars (maltotriose in particular) that beer yeasts can.

 

[GuldTuborg]

That's one of those brewing myths that turns out not to be true. Champagne yeast (and most wine yeasts in general) actually can't ferment some sugars (maltotriose in particular) that beer yeasts can.

Well, this depends upon the reason for the initial yeast giving up, and how much simple sugar is left over. In cases like this, and in stuck fermentations, sometimes there is a good amount of residual simple sugar, and sometimes there isn't.

 

[xxguitarist]

Well, this depends upon the reason for the initial yeast giving up, and how much simple sugar is left over. In cases like this, and in stuck fermentations, sometimes there is a good amount of residual simple sugar, and sometimes there isn't.

Given FG of 1018, I'm expecting that there is not much simple sugar left, save for the corn sugar I added for bottle conditioning.

 

[a10t2]

Well, this depends upon the reason for the initial yeast giving up, and how much simple sugar is left over. In cases like this, and in stuck fermentations, sometimes there is a good amount of residual simple sugar, and sometimes there isn't.

Granted, but in that case adding ANY yeast for carbonation would risk bottles exploding.

 

[trigger]

One other thing is osmotic shock. Even champagne yeast doesn't like going from a starter to a high alcohol environment, although in my limited experience lalvin EC-1118 tolerates this better than other yeast. If you do want to introduce champagne yeast do what the mead guys do. Make a small (1 cupish) starter, and slowly double the volume with a bottle of your beer to acclimate it. Then pitch that into your bottles. Give the yeast the advantage here, since you're kind of asking a lot from it.

 

[Nateo]

If you're worried about the yeast chewing through some residual sugars, Shea Comfort recommends pitching the yeast a few days before bottling to make sure if there are any residual sugars, it'll ferment them out before you bottle and prime.

 

[xxguitarist]

Nottingham on order. Will rehydrate & give it a little bit of a starter mixed with some of the IIPA to munch on, then dose into bottles.