Adding yeast to a high gravity beer

[chewyheel]

I've heard that adding some champagne yeast to a high gravity beer at bottling will ensure good carbonation. I have a 9.5% stout I'm bottling soon. My question is how much yeast to add for a give gallon batch? Thanks.

 

[cswis86]

What yeast did you use and how long has the beer been in secondary? If the yeast has high alcohol tolerance (10%+) I wouldn't add any additional yeast. It might take longer to carb than if you added fresh yeast but since it's a high gravity beer you should let it condition in the bottle for a few months anyway.

 

[jurgenph]

you don't need much.

after one of my high ABV beers (cold crashed for a week) didn't card up after two months, i added champagne yeast at bottling to the next one

rehydrate a pack of ec-1118 in 4 oz of boiled and cooled down to room temp RO water.

add a few drops with a pipette to each bottle, and marked the bottle caps with the number of drops that were added.

after 4 weeks, bottles with 10, 5 and 2 drops were all carded up properly.


J.

 

[chewyheel]

What yeast did you use and how long has the beer been in secondary? If the yeast has high alcohol tolerance (10%+) I wouldn't add any additional yeast. It might take longer to carb than if you added fresh yeast but since it's a high gravity beer you should let it condition in the bottle for a few months anyway.

I pitched 3 packs of Safale 04, which has about a 10% tolerance. It's been in secondary for about 8 weeks after spending 3 in primary.

 

[cswis86]

Hmmm, that might be pushing it... Do you have more S-04? Maybe you can plan on brewing another beer, rehydrate the S-04 in about 4oz of water, add an oz to your stout and the rest to your new beer. Last imperial stout I made I saved some yeast from my starter, built it up again and added about 2oz of the starter to the beer at bottling.