It makes sense to put a little sugar so the last bit of yeast finishes that off and creates carbonation. But I someone suggest I use champagne yeast when bottling my Gose. The question is, why would I do this, and if I add sugar, isn’t fresh yeast going to blow my bottles?
Champagne yeast is a fantastic bottle conditioning yeast. It is cheap ($1 for 5 g), alcohol tolerant, and pH tolerant which is perfect for use in sour beer conditioning. I like to use Lalvin EC-1118 for its price and how neutral it is. You really only need to use half of the pack or so and I prefer to rehydrate it in water first before adding it to the bottling bucket with the cooled priming sugar. Be sure to boil the water (about 1/2-1 cup) first and cool it a bit before adding the yeast to rehydrate it.
It will not continue to work on the sugars left behind in the beer. It will only consume your priming sugar and allow carbonation to occur in a timely manner. I use this method even for non-sour beers that are high in ABV to ensure a proper carbonation instead of waiting months to find out no CO2 has been produced.
What brewinhard said.
I think the confusion here is in thinking that yeast alone create the carbonation. They have to have a carbon source. Hopefully before you bottle you have exhausted the carbon available in your beer so you have to add more or there will be no carbonation no matter how much additional yeast you add.
As brewinhard says, the champagne yeast recommendation is due to it’s ability to work in a low pH environment. however, unless you have aged your gose for a long time you probably don’t need to add any yeast.
If you soured your gose ahead of saccharomyces fermentation and you did not age the beer for very long then you are probably fine to carbonate without a yeast addition. However, if you soured it contemporaneously or after sacc fermentation then the ph may be too low to get good carbonation out of the yeast already in the beer. Without knowing the ph it’s impossible to say.
You could add a wine yeast as insurance for healthy carbonation. Many people prefer EC-1118 because it is not deterred by high gravity or acidity. It’s also not a killer wine yeast so it has a good relationship with beer. However, champagne yeast will actually impart a slight yeasty/biscuit flavor. Many people do not pick up on it as it’s faint. I have bottled with EC-1118 several times in the past and don’t mind the flavor too much but I have since switched to K1-V116 which is more neutral in flavor and can survive even harsher conditions than champagne yeast.
Just bought some to bottle my cherry and peach farmhouse tomorrow.