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High Gravity botteling question
I am bottling a batch of beer that just about hit the 11% mark. I set it aside in a carboy in the back of my cool closet at the beginning of the summer and about 6 months later the rocket fuel flavor is really mellowed out and the beer is bright and clear.
I would like to put some in fancy Belgian bottles and put the rest in regular bottles but I have a question about the yeast. Originally I used WLP500 for the ferm. Should I toss in another vial of the 500 when I bottle or should I use a packet of champagne yeast?
Thanks for the help
ID
I think the Champagne yeast should do the trick.
I bulk age all my big beers for months and then add fresh yeast at bottling. I use US05 dry yeast and rehydrate for at least 10 minutes before I add it to the beer. I used to add it straight to the bottling bucket but lately I've been using a syringe to add it to each bottle.
The key here is to make sure you rehydrate the yeast. When bottling my BDSA I forgot to add fresh yeast so I uncorked every bottle and sprinkled dry yeast in. That beer is still having carbonation problems but the two 10.X% ABV beers I bottle this past month with rehydrated yeast carbed right up in 2-3 weeks.
@FPB:
Do you need to use a whole package? Seems like a lot of extra yeast in the bottles eventually.
The only time I added more yeast back in at bottling I use half a tube of WhiteLabs001. Worked great and I only got a little dusting in each bottle.
Thoughts?
i use about a half of a packet. I don't weigh it or anything, just eyeball it.
FirePitBrew wrote:
i use about a half of a packet. I don't weigh it or anything, just eyeball it.
Me too. Glad we are on the same page.
OK so I am using about half a package of rehydrated dry yeast.
FPB is the US05 going to work on a higher gravity beer? I would think that the alcohol would kill it off. Or will the carbonation time just be a bit longer? say 4 weeks?
thanks again
ID
I just checked my notes and the strongest beer I've carbonated with US05 is a barleywine weighing in at 10.4%.
Once I carbonated a saison with champagne yeast because I didn't want to rely on the yeast I fermented with and I didn't have any US05 on hand. It worked out fine. You could go with either I suppose; I usually have a bunch of US05 and S04 in the fridge so I end up using that.
Just make sure you rehydrate it: I can't stress that enough.
I brewed a batch of Novacaine barley wine that finished with an ABV in the +10% range and it carbonated perfectly when I just bottled it with pure cane sugar for priming. Brewed in early June 2010 I still have 2 liter bottles left in the fridge, saving them for Thanksgiving Day and wishing I had made more.
Sweet gonna grab a packet of USO5 and bottle tomorrow.
Thanks for all the help guys.
ID
Used the packet of US05 and 4.5 oz of priming sugar boiled in a cup of water. Bottled in 12oz, 22oz, and 750ml bottles all carbed up and mighty tasty on the first tries. Gonna park the rest in the back of my storage closet and forget about them for a year or so.
Thanks again for the help.
ID
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