I want to bottle my saison that I brewed back in October 2013. I racked into a secondary and pitched Roselare blend with 3lbs of cherries in Jan 2014. I know it would be idea to keep in secondary, but I’ve used roselare blend for short periods and then gone into bottles for long conditioning and I liked the results AND space saved…
Anyway, do I need to repitch some yeast before bottling, and what would the best practice be? I only ask because I’ve heard there can be issues with repitching in high ABV. Right now I’m around 10%. OR is there enough roselare blend that I pitched about 3 months ago in solution to do the carbing?
FYI - I’m going to high volumes of carbonation with my new 750 ml belgian bottles/corker and thought this would be a great beer for the new set up!
The saison yeast should still be ok to carbonate the bottles but it’s my preference to re-yeast at bottling for high ABV and sour beers as an insurance policy. I’ve had some of those beers not carbonate so the small cost of a little dried wine yeast is worth it to me.
I recently added some CBC-1 yeast when bottling a doppelbock. I bottled 2.5 gallons and only used about 1.2 grams according to the directions. It’s definitely showing signs of carbonation but I have about a week before I check for sure. I’m curious to see if it lives up to its claims of not affecting the flavor profile and leaving the maltotriose alone. Might be worth a try.
