Post-lagering bottle carbing

[rmr9]

Hello all,

I've finally taken the plunge into lager making after a long time of making ales. I have a vienna lager lagering now, and I plan to bottle it at the end of the week. I don't keg, I only bottle. I've read mixed opinions on the matter of bottle carbing a lager. I'm wondering what the best course of action is:
A) Add priming sugar as I normally would
B) Add a neutral ale strain and priming sugar
C) Add more of the original yeast strain and priming sugar

Any input would be much appreciated!

 

[progmac]

i like to add additional yeast for quick carbonation. i use 1/2 teaspon t-58, rehydrated. it works very well and gives you carbed beer in a week. i don't think there is any benefit to repitching the original strain.

if you don't fine (with gelatin for example), you can get away with not adding yeast.

 

[Helper]

Believe it or not you still have a decent amount of yeast in solution and at the bottom of the secondary. Although this yeast is old, tired, and flocculated out it is usually sufficient to carbonate a lager in the bottles when using dextrose. D-glucose (dextrose) is the easiest sugar for the yeast to utilize since it is directly broken down into pyruvate in the glycolysis pathway in the cytosol which subsequently gets decarboxylated by pyruvate decarboxylase to form for acetaldehyde and your desired carbon dioxide, as you know. Often people worry about yeast being tired and old as well as think that once the yeast have flocculated out that they never eat again, but they do. It usually takes longer than the regular 2 weeks of bottle carbonating as ales do (~3 weeks) but just pitching the recommended weight/volume of dextrose for the style per unit volume of liquid will suffice and wont stress the yeast, in fact they will be quite happy to have a simple snack. You should just put your boiled priming solution into your bottling bucket and siphon onto that being careful not to aerate the solution. Allow your siphon to go all the way down to the bottom of the fermentor.This will allow for enough yeast to be picked up for bottling and efficiently mix the dextrose and yeast together. The yeast you pick up may SLIGHTLY make the solution a little cloudy but they are flocculated yeast so they are going to be actively dropping out of suspension very quickly while slowly and efficiently eating the dextrose.

Depending on the style I definitely wouldn't use T-58. T-58 is Fermentis' wheat strain and has the potential to produce a lot of phenolics as you would find in a Belgian or German type wheat beer. The T-58 is so fast because of over pitching and the strain's ability to consume a lot of different types of complex sugar and may actually be consuming some sugar left over by the lager strain as well as your priming sugar, though lager strains are capable of consuming more complex sugar than ale strains anyways. If you were to pitch T-58 (or any new yeast for that matter be it the original strain or clean ale strain) you run the risk of producing off flavors primarily due to over pitching (also another reason why its very fast at carbing..over pitching). When 'conditioning yeast' is pitched in theory you only want to pitch the correct amount to consume ONLY your priming sugar. The approximate 5 oz. of dextrose you throw in will only need at most a million cells (for reference a WYEAST smack pack ensures 100 billion cells for 5 gallons of 1.040 gravity wort). Even with proper calculations creating a liquid starter or throwing a few granules of dry yeast in will either be too little (insignificant and a waste of time and money) or too much (another waste of time and money with the added cost of producing off flavors form over pitching and cell death due to high cell counts and low nutrient availability).

Unfortunately lagering, and all of brewing for that matter, takes time. Just siphon from secondary into the bottling bucket with the boiled priming sugar and wait at least 3 weeks. Don't waste time and money repitching yeast, enlist a little trust in the yeast that's there and other than waiting an extra week there is no other foreseeable problems, only the guarantee of no off flavors.

Be patient.

Hope this helps,
Helper

 

[Helper]

Even better idea... you tell us!

1.) Siphon the solution over to the bottling bucket with the priming sugar as previously stated.

2.) Bottle half of the solution like this

3.) Pitch a little yeast (original or clean ale strain) in the rest of the bottling bucket and let it sit for an hour or so thoroughly mix into the solution

4.) Bottle the rest and mark these bottles

5.) Place all of the bottles in the same place to carbonate.

6.) Try one from each sample group every week

7.) POST results!

If you're willing to put the time, effort, and money into this then it could give you first hand experience, further develop your brewing/packaging process, and would really help the forum out with a definitive controlled experiment to compare the results too. I originally said don't worry about it and just go ahead and prime with priming sugar, which will work great. By splitting the batch you'll find out first hand if its worth it just add priming sugar and bottle, or to add extra yeast.

Cheers,
Helper

 

[Beernik]

I bottled a Dort and a Vienna after 4 weeks of lagering at 35F. They were both fully carbed within a week. Yeasty, but fully carbed.

 

[progmac]

Depending on the style I definitely wouldn't use T-58. T-58 is Fermentis' wheat strain and has the potential to produce a lot of phenolics as you would find in a Belgian or German type wheat beer.

Try it before you knock it. It works really, really well for bottle conditioning and leaves no discernible flavor profile, at least to my palate. Primary fermentation is another story. I've never used it for that.

 

[rmr9]

Thanks for the replies, I like the idea of splitting it and trying both ways Helper. First hand experience is always the best way to go I find. This is a heck of a topic to research on the forum, so I agree perhaps splitting it and posting the results could help people in the future. Will the amount of alcohol in the beer affect the flocculated yeast? My vienna lager is around 5.5% so I'm not concerned about that, but I've just started lagering a maibock which is quite a bit higher than that...maybe 8% or so. Would it be beneficial to add yeast to that one since it is kinda high? Definitely planning to do the split bottling for the vienna, but that maibock is gonna be a doozie I think.

 

[jleiii]

I've done 6 lagers to date, and all have carbed up fine with priming sugar and no added yeast. The most recent was a Vienna Lager where I bottled 3 for competition (1 to sample), and after 10 days @ 72F the sample one was carbed pretty well. Some of the others took up to a month to carb, but I did not have them above 68F at any point, and probably closer to 65 most of the time.

 

[Helper]

Thanks for the replies, I like the idea of splitting it and trying both ways Helper. First hand experience is always the best way to go I find. This is a heck of a topic to research on the forum, so I agree perhaps splitting it and posting the results could help people in the future. Will the amount of alcohol in the beer affect the flocculated yeast? My vienna lager is around 5.5% so I'm not concerned about that, but I've just started lagering a maibock which is quite a bit higher than that...maybe 8% or so. Would it be beneficial to add yeast to that one since it is kinda high? Definitely planning to do the split bottling for the vienna, but that maibock is gonna be a doozie I think.

Again, I would try the split batch. This way you can gain a first hand experience about the effects on carbing at higher alcohol concentration.

In terms of alcohol concentration on flocculation:
In Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff's book "Yeast: The practical guide to beer fermentation" flocculation is an interesting mystical mistress. A lot of factors affect flocculation. The primary factor being the specific yeast strain (compare SO-4 to a Hefeweizen). Alcohol is a by product of anaerobic fermentation and can be toxic at increasing concentrations, but again the tolerance is on the yeast strain. In general flocculation is: cells sticking together. This sticking together results in higher sedimentation rates but it is more or less a function of slowed metabolism, less carbon dioxide release, and less 'floating' ability.

I may not be exactly clear on what type of answer you would like for the effects of higher alcohol concentrations on flocculation: In the fermentor or the bottle after priming? I would say that if anything a higher alcohol concentration adds more stress to the yeast so they are going to metabolize the priming sugar (or available sugar in the wort) and drop out pretty quickly. I am pretty sure you will see no significant difference in terms of how quickly the yeast will drop out in the bottle (If you were to compare the same yeast strain in a higher and lower alcohol solution. Comparing two different strain is another ballgame).

If you mean flocculating in the bottle without the addition of extra yeast, you have to remember that these yeast are already mostly flocced out of solution so there transcription profiles are set more towards staying flocculant rather than not being flocculant. Like I said before though flocculation usually isn't an indication of yeast completely not being able to metabolize sugars so although they are flocculant they will still be able to metabolize simple sugars efficiently.

If you add additional yeast, you have rip roaring ready to go metabolizers that are going to tear through the sugar and then change to a flocculant transcription profile. This may mean that you have a quicker carbonation, but you may have to wait awhile for the added yeast to settle out for clearing.

Try it both ways and let us know.

Cheers,
Helper

 

[Helper]

Try it before you knock it. It works really, really well for bottle conditioning and leaves no discernible flavor profile, at least to my palate. Primary fermentation is another story. I've never used it for that.

Whoops! I didn't mean to try and 'knock' the strain I was just stating potential problems one may have with it. You are right though, I have never added additional T-58 to a bottle for carbing, probably because of its relative cost and my lack of desire to use it in a brew. I have used T-58 before for primary fermentation and I wasn't a fan. This may just be my palate.

Sorry about that,
Helper

 

[LibertyBrewer]

I've done 6 lagers to date, and all have carbed up fine with priming sugar and no added yeast. The most recent was a Vienna Lager where I bottled 3 for competition (1 to sample), and after 10 days @ 72F the sample one was carbed pretty well. Some of the others took up to a month to carb, but I did not have them above 68F at any point, and probably closer to 65 most of the time.

This has been my experience also. I added priming sugar and no yeast to my Noble Pils, and it carbed up fine. I did notice it was a little hazy right after that, but by the second case it had cleared fine.

 

[Yooper]

My two cents-

You don't "have" to add more yeast, as even the clearest lagers will usually have more than enough yeast to successfully carb eventually. However, the "usually" part and "enough" part may be worrisome!

What I've found that works each and every time, no matter how long I've lagered, is to use about 1/3 of a package of nottingham dry yeast to the cooled priming solution, stirring it well, and then racking the beer into it. That was especially great for me a few years ago (or maybe more than a few?) when Nottingham was $1/pack!

Nottingham worked great as it's active at lower ale temperatures, and my basement is never 70 degrees, it was cheap, it was flavor-neutral, and it formed a tightly compacted yeast cake when done, so the minute amount of sediment in each bottle stuck to the bottom like glue and the lager still would pour beautifully clear. Now that it's far more expensive, I'd think twice about adding it maybe, but I'd still do it in any beer that was lagered more than about 3 weeks.

 

[mblanks2]

My two cents-

You don't "have" to add more yeast, as even the clearest lagers will usually have more than enough yeast to successfully carb eventually. However, the "usually" part and "enough" part may be worrisome!

What I've found that works each and every time, no matter how long I've lagered, is to use about 1/3 of a package of nottingham dry yeast to the cooled priming solution, stirring it well, and then racking the beer into it. That was especially great for me a few years ago (or maybe more than a few?) when Nottingham was $1/pack!

Nottingham worked great as it's active at lower ale temperatures, and my basement is never 70 degrees, it was cheap, it was flavor-neutral, and it formed a tightly compacted yeast cake when done, so the minute amount of sediment in each bottle stuck to the bottom like glue and the lager still would pour beautifully clear. Now that it's far more expensive, I'd think twice about adding it maybe, but I'd still do it in any beer that was lagered more than about 3 weeks.

+1 - Nottingham is the way to go. I have used this method with every lager I have made with great success from Yooper's advice.