Priming high gravity beers
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eyeoftheduck
Priming high gravity beers
I have a beer in the secondary which started at 1.092 and is presently at 1.025. So when it comes to bottling, does this need a dose of priming sugar? i.e. is this residual sugar likely to be fermentable or not? I am assuming I will need to add fresh yeast for it to condition in the bottle, the present yeast being knackered after their hard work. Are there any guidelines about what quantities of yeast slurry (from another batch, the same strain) would be needed to add to the beer before bottling?
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David Edge
Some very perceptive questions, Duck.
The yeast is knackered and will autolyse (digest itself) leading to nasty off flavours sometimes called yeast bite, so you need to remove as much of the old yeast by chilling if poss or settling out before re-yeasting. If it has been sitting for a while it will have dropped out.
How much priming depends on the yeast you used initially. If it came down from 1092 to 1025 I assume you used Nottingham or some other strain with good attenuation and alcohol tolerance. It will have eaten all of the available sugars so if you re-yeasted with Nottingham, you'd need to re-prime.
If you has used a slightly less attenuative yeast - say S-04 - I'd be inclined to add Nottingham without priming or without much as it will ferment the sugars the S-04 turned its nose up at.
Supposing you started with Nottingham, given the alcohol content a champagne strain would be best for alcohol tolerance and again it shouldn't be necessary to prime as it will ferment further. Indeed you have to be a bit careful - one friends beer came down from 1090 to 1040 with Nottingham and 1018 with Champagne so it was as well she let that fermentation work itself out in secondary, not bottle! But I wouldn't get so excited given you're down to 1025.
Depends a bit on your approach to risk and how well conditioned you like your beer... just need to experiment I'm afraid. You could try about half of your standard priming and put a bottle or two in the airing cupboard (well wrapped / protected) and see if carbonation is getting threatening.
Geoff Cooper suggests adding just a couple of granules per bottle to carbonate in these conditions. I rehydrate and add about a quarter of the result to the bottling bucket - even for 35 litres. It doesn't need much.
CBA's published loads of stuff on bottling and kegging recently (some would say too much!), but it's not in the public domain yet - they release it after a year. However Peter Fawcett's article at:
http://craft brewing.org.uk/bcpdf/BC5-2_jun2005.pdf
is a good start.
The yeast is knackered and will autolyse (digest itself) leading to nasty off flavours sometimes called yeast bite, so you need to remove as much of the old yeast by chilling if poss or settling out before re-yeasting. If it has been sitting for a while it will have dropped out.
How much priming depends on the yeast you used initially. If it came down from 1092 to 1025 I assume you used Nottingham or some other strain with good attenuation and alcohol tolerance. It will have eaten all of the available sugars so if you re-yeasted with Nottingham, you'd need to re-prime.
If you has used a slightly less attenuative yeast - say S-04 - I'd be inclined to add Nottingham without priming or without much as it will ferment the sugars the S-04 turned its nose up at.
Supposing you started with Nottingham, given the alcohol content a champagne strain would be best for alcohol tolerance and again it shouldn't be necessary to prime as it will ferment further. Indeed you have to be a bit careful - one friends beer came down from 1090 to 1040 with Nottingham and 1018 with Champagne so it was as well she let that fermentation work itself out in secondary, not bottle! But I wouldn't get so excited given you're down to 1025.
Depends a bit on your approach to risk and how well conditioned you like your beer... just need to experiment I'm afraid. You could try about half of your standard priming and put a bottle or two in the airing cupboard (well wrapped / protected) and see if carbonation is getting threatening.
Geoff Cooper suggests adding just a couple of granules per bottle to carbonate in these conditions. I rehydrate and add about a quarter of the result to the bottling bucket - even for 35 litres. It doesn't need much.
CBA's published loads of stuff on bottling and kegging recently (some would say too much!), but it's not in the public domain yet - they release it after a year. However Peter Fawcett's article at:
http://craft brewing.org.uk/bcpdf/BC5-2_jun2005.pdf
is a good start.
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eyeoftheduck
David,
Apologies for not having thanked you earlier for the precise and detailed response to my question. And thanks for the article, which was very useful also.
I used Wyeast 1056, but am not sure how this compares with Nottingham or S-04 in terms of its attenuation, but as it is all that I have in stock I think I'll prime with a little less than the usual amount of sugar and use some re-harvested yeast from the last batch. Have never before added yeast to the bottle, so hopefully there aren't too many pitfalls to adding too much yeast.
Apologies for not having thanked you earlier for the precise and detailed response to my question. And thanks for the article, which was very useful also.
I used Wyeast 1056, but am not sure how this compares with Nottingham or S-04 in terms of its attenuation, but as it is all that I have in stock I think I'll prime with a little less than the usual amount of sugar and use some re-harvested yeast from the last batch. Have never before added yeast to the bottle, so hopefully there aren't too many pitfalls to adding too much yeast.