Yeast before bottling (long secondary).

It's good insurance. May or may not be necessary.

No. Carbonation level will be determined by the amount of fermentables (priming sugar). The yeast don't need to settle down, nor will adding the yeast a week early give you any benefit.

Not much. But someone else can probably tell you how little you can get away with.

It may matter. You don't want a starin that is better at using maltotriose than your original yeast, because you only want the (simple) priming sugars to ferment in the bottles. If you can't use the original strain, pick something equally or less attenuative.

0 days.

 

In past threads a number of folks recommended using ½ packet of dry yeast added into the bottling bucket.

As regards whether to be concerned about maltotriose, WLP500 is a highly attenuating yeast strain so I personally would not be too concerned about that aspect. Any dry yeast strain should be adequate; it will aid in the carbonation process and will have minimal impact on the beer flavor.

Cheers!

 

I agee, I've used 3.5 grams of grocery store baking yeast when bottling recipes that I have doubts about. It's never caused a problem. If the truth was known, most of these ferments would have carbonated just fine without the extra yeast, but the belt and suspenders approach makes some folks, like me, sleep better.

 

I just re-yeasted a Tripel that was cold conditioning for a month. It worked out pretty well so far.

I just added the yeast at bottling time to the bucket. I Added priming sugar and started to rack to the bucket. Once the priming sugar was mixed pretty well (about a 1/2 gallon) I added the yeast.

I used 1 million cells per ml of beer.

 

I used to put a half pack into the beer before bottling, usually for barleywines. Recently I read it only takes about 1 gram, which is about 20 billion cells. A 5 gallon batch is close enough to 20 liters, one liter is 1000 ml, so that comes out to 1 million cells per ml of beer.

 

Jeff,

Are there any negative effects of adding more yeast at bottling (e.g., 5.5 grams vs. 1 gram)?

Cheers!

Jack

 

There didn't seem to be, other than maybe more yeast in the bottom, and spending more money than you need to do the job.

 

“…spending more money than you need to do the job.” So, if you opened an 11 gram dry yeast packet and sprinkled 1 gram into the bottling bucket (I suppose you could add this to a sanitized container to measure the 1 gram) you could ‘roll up’ the packet and save it for another batch. How long does an opened dry yeast packet keep for (1 week?)?

Cheers!

P.S. I just read the data sheet for S-04: "Opened sackets must be sealed and stored at 4C and used within 7 days of opening."

I guess if you don't brew within 7 days of bottling the batch you just chuck the unused packet?

 

I put the packet into a new ziplock, folded up. They seen to last for some time, don't know for sure how much you lose in cell count but it works fine if you are brewing a fair amount and it won't sit long.

 

IIRC Rocdoc got a hunk of a large brick of Nottingham and just kept it in a bag in his freezer for months without issue. Damned lack of old forum archives.

 

On the Danstar web site there is some discussion on freezing dry yeast (which I did know was a possibility; I have always stored my dry yeast in my refrigerator). It appears that it may be OK to store vacuum sealed packets in the freezer.

From the Danstar website:

I have always frozen my dried yeasts after purchase and before use. I have not noticed any detriment to the final product, but I seem to remember reading somewhere in that past year or so not to freeze dry yeast, perhaps even on a package. Is it acceptable to freeze dry yeast or is there some detriment to the practice?

Cheers,
Mike Dixon

RESPONSE:

Mike,

You are right; we had stated in our old technical data sheet that dry yeast should not be frozen. However in the last 3 years we had a project running to optimize storage conditions for dried yeast. We stored several lots of vacuum packed dried yeast at room temperature, in a refrigerator and in a freezer and determined viability, vitality and fermentation performance every 3 month for two years. The results indicated that freezing the yeast does not harm the yeast but is even better than storing the yeast at room temperature. BUT for all storage temperatures it is very important that the yeast is still vacuum sealed. Air/oxygen is doing more damage to the yeast than any difference in storage temperature.

Regards,

Forbes & Tobias

 

Jack,

Check this thread out:

http://www.babblebelt.com/newboard/thread.html?tid=1108752780&th=1312749922&pg=5&tpg=1&add=1

In particular, Mike/OldSock/MadFermentationist mentions, "I have heard (from Chad Y) that if you use too much yeast (in addition to more sediment in the bottle) you can end up with over-carbonation when the cells autolyze and release trehelose which Brett can ferment."

 

It doesn’t sound like hopfenunmaltz had any overcarbonation issues when he used more than 1 gram of dry yeast: “There didn't seem to be, other than maybe more yeast in the bottom, and spending more money than you need to do the job.”

 

Right, because it was a barleywine, and unlikely contained brett.

I just bottled a 1-year sour and used 1 gram of wine yeast to ensure proper carbonation.

 

Yes, no Brett.

Edit - one could also vacuum pack the sachet once opened if you were not using for a while.