Bottling after long conditioning

[mbaker33]

Hey all,

I made a rather high gravity (don't remember the gravity off hand, but it's about 9-9.5% ABV) Belgian Strong Golden ale and it's been aging for about 4 months (since the end of June) while I debated if I wanted to bottle or keg it. I've decided that kegging is too much pain for my liver, so I'm going to bottle it.

My question is, should I re-pitch yeast at this point? I'm not in a hurry to drink it, so if it takes 3-4 weeks to carb, I won't care. I've never repitched before, but I've also only bottled 2-3 beers out of the 100 or so that I've made since I bought a kegerator immediately after my first bottling night. I just want it to be drinkable and delicious (so far the samples have been spot on to what I was looking for.)

The yeast used was the WYeast 3522 : Belgian Ardennes if that matters.

Cheers!

 

[Desp]

I have the same question, but it's been almost a year, not 4 months

 

[Keithww]

I have a RIS with a initial SG of 1.120 that spent 7 months between the brew and the bottle, just to be safe I sprinkled a little Nottingham on it before I stirred in the priming sugar, for under a buck it was a safety measure. I'll be opening the first one in a couple of months so I'll find out then if it worked. Thought about using Champagne yeast, but didn't want it to go full dry.

 

[mbaker33]

You hit my concern. I'm afraid of drying it out too much by adding more yeast, but not carbing at all if I don't. My yeast of choice is capable of going up to 12%, so I'm thinking of just bottling as normal since the yeast should still be healthy.

Please, if anyone has any info to offer, let me know.

 

[TNGabe]

Re-dosing yeast at bottling won't cause additional fermetation of any remaining sugars in the beer. After a poorly carbed batch of biere de garde, I always add bottling yeast to high grav beers that have bulk conditioned for a while. Might just be the yeast strain I use for BdG (wlp072), but I think more yeast is especially imporant for lagered higher abv beers. I just use 69 cent blue cuvee yeast, 1 gram rehydrated is more than enough. Not sure if it's the best way, but I rehydrate the yeast in the priming solution once the solution has cooled enough.

 

[Setesh]

You hit my concern. I'm afraid of drying it out too much by adding more yeast.

Re-dosing yeast at bottling won't cause additional fermetation of any remaining sugars in the beer

I have wondered about this. I know that pitching the same or similar yeast won't cause additional attenuation, but what about a lager yeast? It's common to pitch a lager yeast into a beer that isn't attenuating as much as you would like because lager yeasts can handle more complex sugars than ale yeasts can. So it would seem that they would also cause further attenuation if you used a lager yeast to bottle with. No?

 

[TNGabe]

I have wondered about this. I know that pitching the same or similar yeast won't cause additional attenuation, but what about a lager yeast? It's common to pitch a lager yeast into a beer that isn't attenuating as much as you would like because lager yeasts can handle more complex sugars than ale yeasts can. So it would seem that they would also cause further attenuation if you used a lager yeast to bottle with. No?

Considering you're adding a very small amount of yeast into a low pH and high alcohol environment, I'd consider it a non-issue.

 

[Keithww]

I have a RIS with a initial SG of 1.120 that spent 7 months between the brew and the bottle, just to be safe I sprinkled a little Nottingham on it before I stirred in the priming sugar, for under a buck it was a safety measure. I'll be opening the first one in a couple of months so I'll find out then if it worked. Thought about using Champagne yeast, but didn't want it to go full dry.

Update, I did a crappy job mixing it in and learned a couple of things.

1) With out the new yeast there was not enough viable yeast to bottle condition the beer. About 69% of my bottles were flat.

2) if you open a beer you can tell pretty quickly if it has enough carb and recap it, if not you have time to add a little yeast and recap.

I'm going to try to make a clone of Blue Moon Grand Cru, I will bulk age for 4 to 6 months then use fresh yeast like I do priming sugar, add to the bucket early and mix in well.

 

[Setesh]

Update, I did a crappy job mixing it in and learned a couple of things.

1) With out the new yeast there was not enough viable yeast to bottle condition the beer. About 69% of my bottles were flat.

2) if you open a beer you can tell pretty quickly if it has enough carb and recap it, if not you have time to add a little yeast and recap.

I'm going to try to make a clone of Blue Moon Grand Cru, I will bulk age for 4 to 6 months then use fresh yeast like I do priming sugar, add to the bucket early and mix in well.

How long did you wait for them to carb up? If they had some carbonation to them they are definitely carbonating, it sounds like they just need more time. It can take longer without as much yeast to do the job.

 

[Keithww]

I bottled 4 months ago and they have been sitting at between 73 and 76 that whole time, so I don't think timing is the issue.