high alcohol bottling

[tschmidlin]

You could try it and report back.

I mostly keg, rarely bottle anything.

[morticaixavier]

@rjharper

so what if we force carbed in a keg, then right before bottling shake the keg to get the yeast back into suspension.  that way its carbed, but we’ve still got yeast going into bottles for long term.

I don’t know if you would get the yeast metabolism that scavenges the o2 without adding additional sugar though. But as tom says, try it! not sure how you would test your hypothesis though. I guess side be side, bottle with sugar, keg and bottle with shaking, keg and bottle without shaking and then put the bottles somewhere warm and wait a couple months.

[tschmidlin]

@morticaixavier

@rjharper

so what if we force carbed in a keg, then right before bottling shake the keg to get the yeast back into suspension.  that way its carbed, but we’ve still got yeast going into bottles for long term.

I don’t know if you would get the yeast metabolism that scavenges the o2 without adding additional sugar though. But as tom says, try it! not sure how you would test your hypothesis though. I guess side be side, bottle with sugar, keg and bottle with shaking, keg and bottle without shaking and then put the bottles somewhere warm and wait a couple months.

Sounds like the right way to test it to me.

[etbrew]

@rjharper

@morticaixavier

So no secondary, generally once you transfer to secondary you have removed so much yeast that it has a hard time finishing up any remaining sugar.

I have to disagree here.  I bottle conditioned for 4 years, and every batch was in secondary for a few weeks.  Yes it went into bottles very clear, but there was still enough yeast to do the job, even for 10 %abv beers.  Never had to add more yeast.

It may be fine most of the time but highly recommend adding yeast at bottling time for high gravity beers.  All it takes is one batch of beer to not carbonate to make it worth the pennies it costs (or free if you use a slurry from a previous batch) to add a little insurance at bottling. This is especially true for beers that have been aged for extended periods in a carboy.

[1vertical]

I have had great luck with a proofed smack pack of yeast and a
sanitized glass eye dropper…a drop of yeast culture in each bottle.
FWIW

This will allow you to use a fresh culture of a high alcohol tolerant
strain like Eau Da Vie

[bigd (DW)]

Ok…Panic sets in…Tried my Belgian quad after two and half weeks in the bottle at around 70 degrees.  I bottled from the secondary with about 4oz of priming sugar and did not add any additional yeast, such as cuvee.  It’s dead flat!!!  I was planning on using it in a blind tasting of belgian quads on Dec 17, but that obviously ain’t happening.  What do you guys think?  Can I salvage it without opening all the bottles and adding cooper’s carbonation drops?  That will be a pain in the rear since most of my bottles were corked.  Maybe I should have added champagne yeast, as some on this forum recommended.  I had bottled a tripel years ago without any problems.

[denny]

I wouldn’t do anything but wait for another 2 weeks.

[morticaixavier]

@bigd

Ok…Panic sets in…Tried my Belgian quad after two and half weeks in the bottle at around 70 degrees.  I bottled from the secondary with about 4oz of priming sugar and did not add any additional yeast, such as cuvee.  It’s dead flat!!!  I was planning on using it in a blind tasting of belgian quads on Dec 17, but that obviously ain’t happening.  What do you guys think?  Can I salvage it without opening all the bottles and adding cooper’s carbonation drops?  That will be a pain in the rear since most of my bottles were corked.  Maybe I should have added champagne yeast, as some on this forum recommended.  I had bottled a tripel years ago without any problems.

+1 to Denny’s suggestion.

Does the beer taste a little sweet like the priming sugar is still there? If so then like denny says wait a couple more weeks. If you can’t taste any priming sugar then perhaps the cap on the bottle you tried was not tight. You could crack open another one and check.

could also be due to insufficiently mixed priming sugar so some bottles got too much and some not enough. When I am bottling I add the priming sugar to the bottling bucket first then rack the beer on top of it so it all mixes well. Sometimes I will GENTLY stir with a sanitized spoon as well just to make sure.

If, after a couple weeks it is still flat you do not want to add more sugar, you want to add more yeast. so you open each bottle and sprinkle a couple grains of dry yeast or a couple drops of rehdrated dry or liquid yeast into each bottle and recap.

good luck!