sky4meplease
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2014
- Messages
- 575
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I wasn't sure where to post this because you don't have to look too hard in many of the sub forums to find someone trying to find out why they have no carbonation in their bottled beer but I decided to post here after all.
I bottled an all grain Porter and prior to racking to the bottling bucket I took a sample for viewing under the microscope and tasting. While the sample tasted really good, it couldn't yield even a single yeast cell.
I thought "not a problem" I will pick up some yeast during the transfer and I will be good to go. After the transfer I stirred my 5 gallons of finished product and again took a sample for viewing under the microscope... and tasting [emoji39]
Much to my dismay, I still hadn't a single lonely yeast cell for naturally carbonating my beer.
Not wanting to mess around with washing yeast from my primary fermentor or counting yeast cells to keep from over pitching and risking autolysis in a beer that will likely be in the bottle for a while I ran down to the LHBS for a pack of dry yeast for the job.
I measured out enough dry yeast to hydrate and pitch at a rate of 1 million cells per milliliter as indicated as necessary to carbonate beer in the Yeast book.
While the "Very Highly" flocculant WLP002 yeast that was used for my Porter settled down to the bottom of my fermentor, it would likely surprise most in the hobby that a beer that sat in primary for two weeks and cold crashed for a week at 45 degrees would need a shot of fresh yeast for carbonation.
Additionally, this is not the first time I have witnessed this. Well lagered beers have produced similar results though I have become comfortable dragging the racking cane across the bottom of my secondary picking up some yeast during the transfer to bottling bucket for carbonating with descent results.
I think the moral of the story (for me anyway) is to have a plan for ensuring you have enough yeast to carbonate especially when using highly flocculant yeast, exercising long primary and or secondary fermentations or cold crashing. Keep some dry yeast on hand to hydrate and pitch, save some of your starter, krausen something else you have going or at least be content drinking under carbonated beer because no matter how you measured your priming medium or what temperature you plugged into the calculator for CO2 left in solution there just simply won't be enough yeast to get the job done.
I bottled an all grain Porter and prior to racking to the bottling bucket I took a sample for viewing under the microscope and tasting. While the sample tasted really good, it couldn't yield even a single yeast cell.
I thought "not a problem" I will pick up some yeast during the transfer and I will be good to go. After the transfer I stirred my 5 gallons of finished product and again took a sample for viewing under the microscope... and tasting [emoji39]
Much to my dismay, I still hadn't a single lonely yeast cell for naturally carbonating my beer.
Not wanting to mess around with washing yeast from my primary fermentor or counting yeast cells to keep from over pitching and risking autolysis in a beer that will likely be in the bottle for a while I ran down to the LHBS for a pack of dry yeast for the job.
I measured out enough dry yeast to hydrate and pitch at a rate of 1 million cells per milliliter as indicated as necessary to carbonate beer in the Yeast book.
While the "Very Highly" flocculant WLP002 yeast that was used for my Porter settled down to the bottom of my fermentor, it would likely surprise most in the hobby that a beer that sat in primary for two weeks and cold crashed for a week at 45 degrees would need a shot of fresh yeast for carbonation.
Additionally, this is not the first time I have witnessed this. Well lagered beers have produced similar results though I have become comfortable dragging the racking cane across the bottom of my secondary picking up some yeast during the transfer to bottling bucket for carbonating with descent results.
I think the moral of the story (for me anyway) is to have a plan for ensuring you have enough yeast to carbonate especially when using highly flocculant yeast, exercising long primary and or secondary fermentations or cold crashing. Keep some dry yeast on hand to hydrate and pitch, save some of your starter, krausen something else you have going or at least be content drinking under carbonated beer because no matter how you measured your priming medium or what temperature you plugged into the calculator for CO2 left in solution there just simply won't be enough yeast to get the job done.
