I’m going to bottle a been today that has been conditioning for 4 months. Obviously, I need to add some new yeast to the bottling bucket right before I bottle. I made a yeast starter yesterday with 750 ml of water, 60 grams light DME and 10 grams of Fermentis SafAle F-2. When I bottle the beer tonight, the yeast starter will be 24 hours old! Am I too late with the starter? My fear is that there will be residual sugar left in the starter resulting in an over carbonated beer. I will be adding carbonation drops to the bottles!
Re-adding yeast
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Hi!
I would have simply rehydrated the yeast, as recommended on the packet.
I don't think you are too late - whack it in!
I would have simply rehydrated the yeast, as recommended on the packet.
I don't think you are too late - whack it in!
strange-steve
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As above, I would probably have rehydrated, but I'd be surprised if there were enough fermentable sugars left in the starter after 24 hours to make much of a difference to the carbonation.
I am interested in understanding why you feel the need to use fresh yeast in your beer? If there is any residual yeast in the FV it will wake up after it receives priming sugar at packaging time. Wouldn't it have been better to gently rouse the original beer, leave it for a day or so then package it? Or am I missing something? I often reprime a PB after they have run out of puff, and the yeast gets going again within hours. I have one on the go at present which was originally packaged in October, and is repressurising nicely.
I wouldn't bother with carbonation drops they are an expensive form of adding sugar. Nowt wrong with ordinary table sugar which you can more accurately use for priming. Each to their own though I suppose.
I wouldn't bother with carbonation drops they are an expensive form of adding sugar. Nowt wrong with ordinary table sugar which you can more accurately use for priming. Each to their own though I suppose.
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I believe that most brewers would agree that re-adding some fresh yeast is a good practice when the beer has been conditioning for a long time (I don’t know how long exactly), and you want to bottle. You can add yeast to your PB easily enough, if your yeast is dead, but not with bottles.
But you have a good point, when is it necessary to add fresh yeast (not taking any chances)?
You are right about the carbonation drops, but its convenient and the cost is not a big deal.
Hi!
I recently bottled a milk stout that had sat for about 6 weeks in a cool fridge. After priming and leaving at 20°C for two weeks it was barely carbonated - I put this down to too little yeast. I rebottled with a packet of yeast and it carbed up fine.
I recently bottled a milk stout that had sat for about 6 weeks in a cool fridge. After priming and leaving at 20°C for two weeks it was barely carbonated - I put this down to too little yeast. I rebottled with a packet of yeast and it carbed up fine.
I have a similar experience, but with high flocculation yeast, the beer was very clear, right out of the FV, and that batch did not carbonate very well.
My theory is that 3 factors are in play:
- Flocculation
- Time
- Temperature / cold crash
I don’t know how much each of these 3 matters, but I would like to know for sure.
How did you re-bottle your beer, can you take me through the process. Oxidation must be a concern!
But if you proceed to package beer that has sat for weeks or months, especially in a fridge, and is therefore probably almost completely devoid of yeast cells, then I can fully understand that it will be difficult to get the beer carbed up in a reasonable time. That's why I suggested gentle rousing then a day or so to allow most of the yeast to resettle out, but leaving enough to work on the priming sugar. There is nothing wrong with this yeast, after all many brewers like myself rely on it to carb up the beer, and after its done its job it can sit on the bottom of a bottle for months if thats what the bottle maturing requires and how the brewer stores the beer. And I think people should be cautious about saying 'most brewers would agree', that's a big bold statement to make without having some real evidence to back it up, but I am always receptive to facts to back up opinions. :thumb:
Hi!
I had all but given up on this brew, so it was a "last chance" solution. I put oxidisation on the back burner!
I sanitised my bottling bucket and carefully poured each bottle into the bucket, trying to get the neck of the bottle as close to the surface of the beer as I could. I added rehydrated yeast (Wilko's Gervin Ale), added some more priming sugar solution, just in case, gently stirred and bottled.
strange-steve
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Why spend a couple of months lagering your beer to the point where it's crystal clear only to stir up the sediment again? I have had issues with carbonation after long periods of bulk conditioning, so now I often add some yeast at bottling time if the beer has been in the FV for a while (ie 8 weeks plus).
Thanks for your input, but I'm not tryinng to make bold statements. I said "I believe" meaning "It is my understanding that...". Mostly it's based on this guy, he is a retired professional brewer and now a Youtuber. Also this forum and this article. The latter also warnes about disturb the sediment.
But I thought lagering was done for others reasons? And if you still have to chuck more fresh yeast in to get it carbed up then isn't that in effect the same as rousing the original yeast and then leaving it for a while to resettle to 'almost clear' or clear enough to still have enough cells to carb up, which is what I was suggesting. I am certainly not advocating bottling cloudy beer.
OK, looked through the articles and watched relevant part of the video, all seem to refer to very high gravity beers, and there was one reference to conditioning periods running into years. The articles seemed a bit vague on the reasoning for using fresh yeast. However the suggestion not to disturb the trub when you are racking off to a bottling bucket is sensible especially since you are adding more yeast and bottling immediately. So I remain a bit sceptical about this approach except for high gravity beers which have been conditioned for many many months or even years. And unless anyone can come with a good reason (autolysis?) will just agree to differ. And after all that hope your beer works out for you. :thumb:
I've had an ale which has been sat in my brew fridge for 3 1/2 months now. This wasn't really intentional but I hurt my back so lifting 35KG of beer and fermentor in a confined shed was out of the question. When that got better the miserable weather and dark nights were enough to put me off bottling.
I kegged 19L of it last night and will force carbonate this but that still leaves about 8-10L that I will bottle tonight. My plan is to drain into a bottling bucket but I'm going to give the yeast cake a poke near the tap to make sure I get some yeast in the bottles. The fermentor has been kept at about 4-5°C for most of the last 3 months, so I think there will still be some viable yeast left. I will then make sure they are somewhere properly warm for a couple of weeks.
If they don't carb up after that, I'll uncap them and add a pinch of bread CML yeast to each bottle but I suspect I won't need it.
I kegged 19L of it last night and will force carbonate this but that still leaves about 8-10L that I will bottle tonight. My plan is to drain into a bottling bucket but I'm going to give the yeast cake a poke near the tap to make sure I get some yeast in the bottles. The fermentor has been kept at about 4-5°C for most of the last 3 months, so I think there will still be some viable yeast left. I will then make sure they are somewhere properly warm for a couple of weeks.
If they don't carb up after that, I'll uncap them and add a pinch of bread CML yeast to each bottle but I suspect I won't need it.
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