Yeast at bottling.

Why would you use Yeast AT bottling? I am new to this so I am curious also.

From what I gathered you siphon the brew out the fermentor and leave the Yeast cake in the fermetor....while transferring to the bottling bucket a certain amount of yeast tranfsfers back into the bottling. Just enough to help with carbonation?

 

Some people add yeast at bottling if the beer has been aging in primary/secondary/lagering for a long time. It's insurance against the possibility that there may not be enough yeast left in suspension. Totally unecessary IMO for 99.9% percent of beers. OTOH, it doesn't really hurt anything.

 

I was curious about the same thing, as I'm very much aware that many brewers do this for whatever reason, but wasnt sure about why. I was assuming it had to do with the style of beer, but was hoping to pick up on this before asking.

I heard a podcast recently with Vinnie Cilurzo, who was explaning that he used wine yeast in the bottle (in Damnation, I think). So is this common with Belgian style beers?

I'm now realizing that many of these bottles say "will ferment in the bottle for up to 5 years" or whatever, so if someone could just tie that all together and make me that much smarter, I'd appreciate it.

 

I was going to ask about this in a few months, I have a pair of big 10% abv quads sitting in secondary right now. All the yeast is slowly dropping out of suspension, and I'm guessing I'll need to add more at bottling. But how much? A smack pack? A starter? Just enough to ferment the amount of priming sugar?

 

I don't know specifically about Vinnie's beers, but the general reason for wine yeast is that it is fairly alcohol tolerant (depending on strain) and/or because it won't eat complex sugars, so no further fermentation of the remaining wort sugars will happen, but the simple priming sugar will be eaten.

Which bottles are those?

 

I have an 11% ABV stout sitting in my basement that's been oaking for about a month and has been in primary for another month before that. I'll definitely be hitting it with yeast before I bottle. High alcohol makes it hard to kickstart new fermentation. Old yeast shouldn't be trusted to get the job done either. There's nothing worse than 50 bottles of flat beer that you need to pry tops off of and add more yeast to later down the road.

I'll use the same yeast that I fermented with if it can tolerate the % alcohol that is in the beer. If it can't I'll pitch a dry packet of champagne yeast into the fermenter about a week before I'm going to bottle. This is to let the new yeast get into solution and I let it see if it wants to ferment anything. I'm sure I'll get dinged for this, as they are a different yeast and don't eat maltose. But, as said above,^^^ it's for insurance.

 

Vinnie was speaking about Damnation...its history, how it got to where its at today, etc. I'll have to go revisit it as to what in particular it imparts on the beer, but it was an interesting listen.
As for which bottles, I forgot...maybe it was a Goose Island Matilda or an Orval? I'm going to keep my mouth shut until I check.

 

To piggy back on @VikeMan as far as Alcohol tolerance, in sour beers Wine/Champagne yeasts are typically more tolerant of the lower pH than brewers yeast which is another reason it is used. A few guys in my club blended and bottled a bunch of sours (15 different kegs of beer used) and pitched a fresh slurry of 1968 from our local brewery and the bottles are completely flat at this point. Probably due to that yeast not being tolerant of the low pH.

 

Making any ice beer.

 

I will re-yeast if something is >10% ABV or if it's a sour (untoward conditons for refermentation with tired yeast). I usually use Lalvin EC-1118 as it's cheap, neutral, fast and EtOH tolerant. Occasionally I'll rehydrate 2-ish grams for the bottling bucket, but more often I'll throw the whole 5 gm unrehydrated packet in there.

 

I've learned it's more better to add a little yeast to the bucket when bottling a hi-FG beer such as a barleywine.

Jamil recommends 10% of the original pitch volume.
Works for me.

 

Keep them warm (70F) and test them after about 10 days. Hopefully a PSST!

 

Just be patient with high gravity beers. I've had 12% ABV quads take 6 months or more.

 

Sorachi Ace has Champagne yeast added at bottling, I believe.

 

I add 2 drops of Bret Brux per 12 oz when making an Orval clone.

 

Why 2 drops per bottle instead of adding a batches worth to the bottling bucket?

 

One reason is that I don't want to contaminate my bucket and the other is I usually brew 18 gallons at a time and I have some leftover from one package of bret brux. I like even distribution. The two drop method has worked well for me.

 

Anyone used Danstar's Cask and Bottle Conditioning yeast? I've seen it before and was curious.