Should I add more yeast

[Kluxen]

I brewed an Affligem Noel Christmas Ale clone from the book Beer Captured. The recipe states, "Prime the beer in the second stage with another dose of the same strain of fresh yeast 3 days before bottling...Adding another dose of yeast 3 days before bottling will ensure that the beer is fully fermented and the will greatly improve carbonation." When I measured the beer's gravity while transferring to secondary, it read 1.022 which is it's target FG. Do I need to dose it again? Will that second dose of yeast improve bottle conditioning and/or carbonation? I haven't bottled since I built my kegerator, so I'm a little rusty on bottling techniques, though I don't remember ever having added yeast specifically for carbonation. thanks.

-dk

 

[sheeshomatic]

Typically when you bottle, you don't need to add yeast. You'll be priming with more sugar, so they will go ahead and carb your beer. However, with a big 9 ish percent beer like the Noel, they may be counting on much of the yeast going dormant or floccing due to the alcohol content. Still sounds overy cautious to me however. I'd prime and bottle and not worry about it.

 

[KuntzBrewing]

i'd prime and bottle and not worry about it.

+1

 

[Kluxen]

What if there isn't enough yeast to properly carbonate? I left a lot of the yeast cake in primary.

 

[RM-MN]

i try to leave as much of the yeast cake in the primary as I can and there is still a lot of yeast in the beer, plenty to carbonate. Unless you are aging your beer for several months there will be plenty of yeast.

 

[Kluxen]

That's what I thought. Thanks.

 

[Revvy]

I never really understood the logic behind that oldschool "add more yeast 3 days before." The real way to insure your beer is finished fermenting, is to give it sufficient time for the yeast to do their job, AND to take 2 hydrometer readings over 3 days to insure that it is finished.

In beers that have sat for awhile in primary (over 6 months,) or for high gravity beers, adding more yeast at bottling time, is often a good idea.

But adding yeast 3 days before is just silly....for one thing, it may take 3 days for the yeast to leave the lag phase and start fermenting, so you could potentially have bottle bombs if there was a lot of unfermentables in there along with the sugar you've just added. Secondly you're wasting co2, that had you trapped it in the bottle would contribute to carbing your beer, but now, if it is fermenting is going out the airlock.

People sure came up with some odd things back in the day, especially to avoid taking a bloody grav reading.