repitch at bottling?

jfrank85 · Nov 22, 2011

Got an RIS that has been sitting in the basement for 6 months now, 3 setting and 3 on bourbon oak. OG was 1.092 and fg as of 6 months ago was 1.025. I used Edinburgh yeast from white labs and used a huge starter from a yeast cake from a small oatmeal stout. Question is, should I repitch new yeasties when I bottle? Should I add priming sugar to the bottling bucket? Fyi the beer was mashed at 156F and had a thick mash with oatmeal and other unfermentables. Thanks for any and all replies, quite the noob when it comes to higher abv brews.

JLW · Nov 22, 2011

jfrank85 said:
Got an RIS that has been sitting in the basement for 6 months now, 3 setting and 3 on bourbon oak. OG was 1.092 and fg as of 6 months ago was 1.025. I used Edinburgh yeast from white labs and used a huge starter from a yeast cake from a small oatmeal stout. Question is, should I repitch new yeasties when I bottle? Should I add priming sugar to the bottling bucket? Fyi the beer was mashed at 156F and had a thick mash with oatmeal and other unfermentables. Thanks for any and all replies, quite the noob when it comes to higher abv brews.

Similar situation for me earlier this year. I opted to re-pitch with a 5 oz packet of US-05 4 days before bottling. Yes, I added my priming sugar to the bottling bucket and then racked the beer on top.

jfrank85 · Nov 22, 2011

How did it turn out?

JLW · Nov 22, 2011

Funny, I was thinking I typed the rest of the story....

It turned out great. One of the best beers I have made to date. Perfect amount head and good retention.

One of the problems you can run into on high gravity beers is the yeast can sometimes go into a state of shock and cause the beer to take a long time to carb up. With that long of a bulk age the yeast that's left will in fact settle into the cake and there may just not be enough to carb properly.

This is the advice I got from my LHBS and it seemed to work for me.