Bottle Conditioning

[Cloth Ears]

All my brews are for bottling, and in most cases I don't have an issue. But for one of my recent batches, I tried a new yeast which produces a fine tasting beer, but seemed not to survive enough to be able to produce bubbles after bottling. Now, this is a 12.6% Imperial Stout style brew, and previous 'vintages' were done using a Belgian yeast that simply was not available for this batch.
So, after 3 months in the bottle, there wasn't a peep when opening them. So I went for a rather ambitious step of filling a container with C02 (the advantages of having a Soda Stream), emptying half my bottles in there and then pitching a small amount of some nice strong yeast and re-bottling. 3 months later, yummy! And 18 months later, even yummier. So the second half has to be rebottled shortly, using the residual sugar in the beer and simply adding a small amount of yeast to create the bubbles.

Has anyone else tried this? I know of at least one brewery that has had similar issues with the yeast that I had - and with one of their top-line brews, no less.

I was thinking that I could also use this technique if I can manage to grab a small barrel to age my beer in. I could then do the same once I came to the bottling stage. At this time, I get the oak/sherry flavour by using oak chips in the fermenter about the same time I start dry hopping, but I'd be keen on trying a barrel if I can get my hands on one.

 

[Markbeer]

This happens to me from time to time with high gravity beers.

I just uncap, add yeast then recap with new caps.

It is really better to just add yeast at bottling for high gravity beers if you doubt the yeast is up to carbing up the beer. Especially if aged for any time in bulk n a barrel or on Oak chips etc.