Adding Yeast at Bottling Time

[user 197168]

Folks,

This is a bit embarrassing as I'm no newbie, but over the past 4 months I've been getting into strong ales, mostly Belgian. They've all brewed up nicely, but, unlike my pale ales etc, I've given them a good bit of time in the carboy on the yeast cake. Probably 6 weeks or so.

Anyhow, come bottling time I bulk primed in my bottling bucket and bottled away. And waited. And got impatient after a month and cracked one. The flavour is great. The carbonation not so much. I kind of figured that as I had aged them in the carboy a lot of the yeast had dropped out of suspension. It would therefore take a while to get going and carbonate again.

I cracked a different dark strong the other night that was still very under-carbonated after 8 weeks. In hindsight, I should have added some yeast at bottling time to these beers, but I'm hoping time will save me.

Has anyone else been stupid enough not to add yeast and had success after a bit of a wait? Let me know what you think.

Thanks in advance
HP

 

[ColoHox]

More time should help. I rarely have to add additional yeast at bottling, and so far only had to occasionally with beers above 12%. I usually do it at bottling time though, as you mentioned.

The remaining yeast is tired and stressed so it will take longer to carbonate completely, but should do okay.

If you decide you have waited long enough, you could add more yeast easily. I mix a solution of champagne yeast (or any other neutral, high ABV yeast) in sterile water and temper it a bit with a small amount of the beer. Add the mix to a clean plastic syringe then drop about 1ml of yeast solution into each bottle and recap.

 

[user 197168]

Cheers ColoHox! I like your emergency yeast injection idea. I'll give it another month, test again and if things still aren't carbonated I'll give it a try.

The upside of this is that I HAVE to let my big beers sit and mature a bit. They'd probably be all gone by now otherwise.

 

[jkeys]

Hermanpeckel, not to highjack your thread, but I've been reading up on this a lot over the past week or so. In actually a ways away from bottling my RIS.

I plan on aging 1 month primary, 3 months secondary with French oak, soaked in bourbon. Then finally bottling and letting condition until September at least.

If I decide to add ec-1118 at bottling does anyone have an idea of how much yeast into the 5 gallon bottling bucket? I do like the idea of the syringe injection idea as well but I'd like to exercise all options in order to do this correctly.

Cheers!

 

[jkeys]

I suppose I should add my Og was 1.112 and 2 weeks in I'm sitting steady at 1.028. Hoping to tick a few more points off but I suppose time shall tell.

 

[user 197168]

So, in the name of science, I thought I'd crack another of my Belgian dark strong bottles. You know, just to test carbonation levels again. So two weeks ago this dark strong was pretty much "English bitter" in carbonation, maybe even less so.

Well, what a difference two weeks makes. This beer is now beautifully carbonated (and damn tasty)!! So much so that I had to finish the bottle. It appears you are bang on ColoHox!!

jkeys - after my experience I don't think I'd be adding extra yeast, but I guess if you wanted to sample some soon after, it might be a good idea.