Belgian Dark Strong Ale Bottling

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steviebobs83
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Belgian Dark Strong Ale Bottling

Post by steviebobs83 » Wed Jun 13, 2018 11:04 pm

I have a Belgian Dark Strong Ale that's been conditioning in demijohns since early March (some with oak chips and some with blackberries) 3 demijohns in total.

I'm going to bottle this in the coming weeks and my question is, should I add some additional yeast or would there still be enough knocking around to carbonate?

It's a big beer (around 10.5% ABV) and I know the 2 gallons I bottled at the time I racked these 3 have carbonated. Does the length of time I've left them conditioning have much bearing on the remaining yeast?

Whilst it wasn't an expensive brew, I've invested quite a bit of time into it and I'm not planning on drinking any until early next year and would be really disappointed if it ended up flat. If I use some champagne yeast at bottling, would this impact the flavour much?

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

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Jim
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Re: Belgian Dark Strong Ale Bottling

Post by Jim » Thu Jun 14, 2018 8:23 am

Just a few random thoughts - I don't really know the solution: -

What yeast did you do the initial fermentation with? If it's a highly flocculant one, you might have a problem.

is there any particular reason you want to use champagne yeast? I would have thought any neutral wine yeast that settled well would do it (though I don't know how happy it would be about going straight into a high-alcohol environment).
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steviebobs83
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Re: Belgian Dark Strong Ale Bottling

Post by steviebobs83 » Thu Jun 14, 2018 8:55 am

I used Mangrove Jacks Belgian Tripel M31 which is advertised as medium flocculant. Due to my own stupidity and inability to read a refractometer it's had 3 packets of the stuff in total, 2 at the start and 1 in the middle when I thought it had stalled.

As I say, the ones I bottled a couple of months ago have carbonated, just not sure what it's like when it's been sitting a while.

I was looking at possibly using champagne yeast because (a) I have some in my fridge and (b) I've read it's high alcohol tolerant so won't give up as soon as I pitch it. Although I have seen some conflicting opinions on various forums on how useful it is in beer, so not sure.

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