Bottle Conditioning High Gravity Beer

Discussion in 'Homebrewing' started by InVinoVeritas, May 27, 2018.

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  1. InVinoVeritas

    InVinoVeritas Initiate (0) Apr 16, 2012 Wisconsin

    Brewed an English Barleywine early this year with WY1968 (alky tolerance 9%), OG 1.122, FG 1.033. Plan on bottle conditioning. If yeast activity halted from alcohol tolerance, I'm not going to carbonate in the bottle even with the introduction of the simple structure priming sugars. Alternatively, if I pitch a different yeast strain at bottling, I could ferment more than the priming sugars. Thoughts?
     
  2. MrOH

    MrOH Grand Pooh-Bah (3,995) Jul 5, 2010 Virginia
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah

    I've heard good things about the Danstar CBC yeast for bottle conditioning, but haven't tried it. Champagne yeast has worked for me, and is cheap.
     
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  3. SFACRKnight

    SFACRKnight Grand Pooh-Bah (3,348) Jan 20, 2012 Colorado
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    The cbc yeast is what you seek. I pitch a satchel in the bottling bucket with my priming sugar, cheap insurance.
     
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  4. pweis909

    pweis909 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,250) Aug 13, 2005 Wisconsin
    Pooh-Bah

    There are some strains like CBC with limited ability to ferment complex sugars but with high alcohol tolerance. Champagne yeast has been used for similar reasons. I believe t58 is derived from a bottling yeast. However, I’ve never used any of these solely for priming. I’ve used notty and us05 for this. If they also fermented some complex sugars, it wasn’t enough to make bottle bombs or to make me think I ended up with a different beer than I wanted.

    Worth noting: in my experience it takes longer for high grav beers to reach peak carbonation
     
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  5. Buck89

    Buck89 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,782) Feb 7, 2015 Tennessee
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    I bottle conditioned a 12+% RIS (fermented with US-05) and added some dry CBC yeast at bottling. Bottles were stored at 72 degrees and the first one opened was undercarbed at 5 weeks. I sat on them. It took 3 months, but they have all been perfectly carbed (for my priming sugar) since.
     
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  6. GormBrewhouse

    GormBrewhouse Pooh-Bah (2,111) Jun 24, 2015 Vermont
    Pooh-Bah

    +1 for cbc has carbed beers up to 14% for me with good results.
     
  7. SFACRKnight

    SFACRKnight Grand Pooh-Bah (3,348) Jan 20, 2012 Colorado
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    My experience is much different with cbc. I can up in 2 to 3 weeks.
     
    pweis909 likes this.
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