Bottle conditioning with yeast or new wort

[trustyrusty]

Hi Guys,

For a couple of brews I might have bottled to early and the beer is a bit gassy (but most likely because there is sugar and the added gas from yeast) BUT I was watching a video online where a guy was making beer for a pub and he used some of the new wort of the same recipe (not sure of the % but they get that stuff close to their chest) to bottle condition the beer.

I was thinking that if I bottled a beer say 2 days earlier than it should would that not be the same thing, the yeast would still be working in the bottle. Co2 is used for get head in beer (keg system) and for pumping out of the keg (unless gravity feed) and yeast produces Co2...seems the same thing to me..

Also, I was thinking that if you condition with a sugar or dextrose, does that not change the flavour compare to someone who kegs and uses CO2? If you were trying to make an exact recipe that is. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with "sugar" bottle conditioning...

Anyone used yeast for conditioning and if so would make a starter kit and whirlpool it in secondary keg and bottle...

Thanks

 

[razz]

Hey Trustyrusty. With regard to bottling 2 days early you need to be spot on with your gravity predictions. If you can accuratley predict your final SG then you can bottle when there is a known amount of fermentation left.
Adding fresh wort to the beer, for bottle conditioning, is called krausening.
It's a long time since I used sugar for bottle conditioning but I don't recall it affecting the flavour, no cidery type flavours. Compared to using CO2 to carbonate, the bottle conditioned beer sometimes has a smoother carbonation. Not sure of the technical reasons for this.

 

[trustyrusty]

Thanks, I have an ale on the go... sitting at 1014, I am hoping for 1010/ 1008... so I have put 1/2 a stubby away to see what happens... This is a coopers dark ale with bry 97 yeast... so may work for this purpose...? Will let you know....cheers

 

[TheWiggman]

Be wary of the yeast you are using and how you are using it, if you want to bottle early (disregarding bottle bomb risks) be prepared for diacetyl like you've never known.
I've always found my bottled beers to be slightly different to the keg. I assume this is mainly due to them having more alcohol. I've also had diacetyl issues with bottling, never with kegging.

 

[Nicko83]

I just brewed a German wheat beer and will be bottling it in a week or so. It is cold conditioning as we speak. I'll be carbonating it in accordance with the 'Classic Beer Styles' method. That is, I'll make a small wort from DME, and add that and some dry lager yeast to my fermented, conditioned beer, at the time of bottling, ensuring I mix it through thoroughly.
Any thoughts/suggestions/ideas?

 

[Chridech]

Question from a newbie - I have recently added a fermenting fridge to my brewing set-up and it has been awesome to be able to dial in fermenting temp, especially during the hot summer. I was all raring to go to crash chill my current ale brew (for clarity) when I read on Beersmith Blog today that CC to 2 degrees will kill the yeasties. As I don't have a kegging set-up as yet I will be bottling the entirety. According to Brewsmith if you CC before bottle carbonation you need to add new yeast at time of bottling. Is this true? Do I really have to add new yeast? And if so how much do I need to add? My plan is to add a pack of a clean dry yeast such as US-05 at the time of batch priming, but I would prefer to get away with no yeast at all if feasible. I would appreciate if anyone had any experience with this.

 

[Kingy]

Nah mate new yeast is not added. Crash chilling only puts the yeast to sleep (and clears the beer) after you bottle and the temperature rises the yeast will wake up and start carbing for you.

 

[Yob]

That's bullshit, no need to add more yeast, there will be plenty left to carbonate.

Edit: segment sponsored by white labs?

 

[Chridech]

Thanks for the advice lads. Glad to hear I don't need to make bottling any more complicated. Cheers.

 

[philistine]

I dont have any kegging gear so i always bottle my brews and i only ever do it with speisse/gyle/unfermented wort.
Ive never liked the idea of adding cane sugar or dex to beer - it just seems wrong.
Ever since i started doing it, i never turned back. No more need to buy dme l, or dex or measure sugar or boil stuff before bottling or any of that jazz.
All i do is make an extra 2-3 litres or so on brew day and then bottle it while hot into sterilised passata bottles.
Once they cool, the lids pop and they become vac sealed and keep for months (years even).
When it comes to bottling day, i just use the gyle priming calc on brewersfriend.com to figure out how much to use and then just open the bottles, tip them into a bulk priming/mixing/tap barrel thing and its all done! The calculator is really good and also works out how much sugar/dex/dme you will need to add if you dont have enough gyle.

The bottled beer then sidt for two weeks at room temp and by then theyre good to go!
Ive done this with every single batch of beer of many different style over the last 2 years and never had a problem.
Its cheap, simple , no need to add yeast and theres absolutely no chance of the priming solution affecting the flavour of the beer.

 

[Rocker1986]

There's no need to add yeast if you use dex or sugar for priming either. Anyway, interesting process for sure. Never really thought about doing it myself although now I keg most of my beers anyway, so it's easier just to use dex/sugar for the few surplus bottles I get from a batch.

 

[philistine]

Sorry - yeah, just to clarify, ive never found the need to add yeast with other priming methods either