Bottle priming Strong Ales

[HBDrinker008]

so the name of the thread pretty much says it. I was thinking of making a barley wine and I bottle all of my beers so I was wondering if standard bottling procedures would work or if the yeast would be pooped out to do its thing in the bottles, or if the yeast would not be able to tolerate the alcohol in the bottles and would not do its thing either?

Just looking for some basic opinions/ success stories.

 

[Zzyzx]

From reading a few books on brewing big Belgian ales... It appears that all of the Belgian Trappist ales repitch fresh yeast for bottle finishing their Big ales.

So, I don't think it would be a bad idea to do so as well for a big barley wine.

 

[HBDrinker008]

Would I put a whole package of say dry yeast in the Bottling bucket or would i want to use less. 5 gallon bath FWIW

 

[HBDrinker008]

Batch not bath

 

[BierMuncher]

I’m not sure, but I’d think the amount of yeast doesn’t really matter, since there is such a limited amount of sugar for them to digest.

I guess that I’d hydrate a half packet and add to the bottling bucket at the same time as priming sugar.

I have a Russian Imperial Stout that I’ll be bottling in a couple of months so I’m going to face the same circumstance.

 

[AllHoppedUp]

I posed this question myself one time when I was preparing to bottle an imperial stout. I'd left it in the tertiary for about a year and thought the yeast would be pooped but I was assured that there would still be enough thriving yeast for bottle conditioning and that I shouldn't repitch. I bottled and it was fine. It will take a bit longer than normal to carbonate but that's okay for big beers.

 

[CBBaron]

If you bottle within a few months of brewing there should be plenty of viable yeast for bottling. If you age for 6months or more then adding dry yeast at bottling is probably a good idea.
The only problem will come if you make a beer so big the yeast start pooping out from the alcohol. In that case about your only choice is to keg and force carbonate, then bottle from the keg.

Craig

 

[sirsloop]

I was just considering this when kegging my latest batch of Trois Pistoles. Its up around 9% so I decided to dump in 1/3 cup of dextrose. There's so much yeast in suspension still, even after over 6 weeks in primary and secondary. I'd be concerned when you start getting over 10%. My next batch is sitting at 10.5%, but the yeast is supposed to work up to 12% and it had a 5 gallon starter so I should be ok. Dextrose is easy for the yeasties to metabolize anyways