I just finished brewing a Fuller’s ESB clone. I bottled it two weeks ago. It is really showing no signs of being carbonated. The beer finished with a very low gravity reading of 1.004. I believe I need to add some yeast to each bottle to get things going again. How many grams of yeast per ounce do I add. I used Nottingham dry ale yeast. Any opinions?
Before opening all the bottles, I would give each one a shake to resuspend the yeast and put them some where that is 70F or a little above and doesn’t have large temp swings. English style yeast tends to drop out of suspension pretty easily, especially if there are temp swings. Two weeks is not a lot of time for bottle conditioning.
If you do decide to add yeast to the bottles, you will only need to add a few grains of dry yeast to each.
I’d drink flat beer before I’d open bottles and add yeast, for me, once it’s in the bottle whatever happen is what I’m stuck with. From my experience dry yeast sprinkled on finished beer, or rehydrated and added to finished beer isn’t anywhere nearly as reliable and bulletproof as it is with unfermented wort. YMMV
Shaking is a sure way to oxidize and ruin your bottled beer. Let it sit for two to three more weeks at 70 degrees or a tad more before considering adding more yeast. If you do need to add dry yeast, it requires no oxidation, so add a minuscule pinch to each bottle and re-cap with no shaking.
You did add priming sugar, right?
I could not disagree more. Every beer has residual carbon dioxide. Therefore, I don’t believe there is enough oxygen in the bottle to oxidize. In fact, I have had to “rouse” the settled yeast before with great success and never experienced any oxidation. I have had to do this with highly flocculent yeast. So I recommend turning the bottle over and give it a shake. Then keep the beer warm and give it a couple more weeks.
This is what happens when you shake bottles to assist with carbonation:
The amount of oxygen in the bottle was set at the time of bottling. Resuspending the yeast in the bottle is not going to increase the oxidation of the beer.
At HomebrewCon in Minneapolis, Bob Hall have a talk on oxidation. One part was about a little rest he ran, where he uncapped a beer to let air in the recapped it. After some time, can’t remember the duration, he poured it into a glass, and had the control beer in a glass too. The picture of the two showed the on exposed to air was darker from oxidation, no shaking required.
Better breweries strive for < 50 ppb TPO, often getting to the area of 20 ppb . The demo in the talk probably had more than 1000 times that last number.
My $0.02 here is to at least cap on foam, as foam is CO2 in the bubbles.
That was a very interesting video, indeed. However, the subject matter in the lengthy video was not the same as the subject matter I was referring to. This video showed a guy partly filling a bottle, then vigorously and violently shacking the bottle long before the carbon dioxide has an opportunity to overcome the dead space above the beer.
My suggestion was intended to take place a few weeks after the beer has been in the bottle. Further, I suggested the brewer “rouse” the yeast. This means to “awaken” (if you will) the yeast cake on the bottom of the bottle. What I have done is to invert the bottle while holding the neck and give it a couple shakes - like I was shaking a bell - then return the bottle to its upright position and wait a couple more weeks. Simple, and effective. I’m not sure any experiences brewer would violently shake a freshly poured bottle of beer. That makes no sense.
I have judged some beers that are filled to the top, “Cap on Beer” would be the phrase. These were IPAs, the brewer didn’t want the hop aroma to oxidize - I assume.
I completely agree with KellerBrauer! Whatever oxygen is in the bottle when capped will do its dirty work of oxidizing the beer whether you shake, swirl or let it sit. When I need to rouse the yeast off the bottom of a bottle, I invert it once or twice then put it back in the case in an upright position. You don’t need to violently shake the bottle to rouse the yeast.