Best yeast for bottle conditioning barleywine?

[shawnbou]

In April I brewed a 1.114 American barleywine with 2.5 packets of US-05. Four weeks later (5/27) I racked it to secondary. The gravity had been stable for two weeks at 1.023, for an ABV of 12.2%.

It's now been aging for a total of 6+ months and I want to bottle it. It sounds like I should pitch a half pack of dry yeast at bottling to ensure carbonation. The real question is, what yeast?

Can anyone help me figure out the pros and cons of using any of the following to bottle condition this barleywine:

• US-05 (same yeast I fermented with)
• S-04 (more flocculant - is that a good thing for bottle conditioning?)
• wine/champagne yeast (better alcohol tolerance, but will it dry it out?)

I just want to understand what my options are. Much appreciated, HBT.

 

[eastoak]

the bottling yeast won't have much if any effect on flavor so you could use whatever you want, i've used champagne yeast when bottling 1 yr old sours.

 

[flars]

Take a look at Fermentis Safbrew F-2. Might be just what you are looking for.

 

[shawnbou]

Safbrew F-2 looks perfect, but I'm having trouble locating a seller. Anyone know where to buy it in the USA?

Champagne yeast sounds like a good option. I keep reading it should ferment the simple sugars (priming sugar) and leave the more complex sugars alone.

I also read that some use T-58 for bottle conditioning, but its alcohol tolerance is quoted as 11.5% and I'm past that, so I'm assuming it wouldn't work.

 

[shawnbou]

After doing some research, I can't find Fermentis F-2 for sale in the USA. But I did find Danstar CBC-1 at several online HBS, and it looks like it's designed for the same purpose.

http://www.danstaryeast.com/products/cbc-1-cask-and-bottle-conditioned-beer-yeast

Thanks for the help, all, I'm gonna go with the CBC-1.