Should I add more yeast at bottling?

[supertonio]

All,

I have made an imperial IPA which has gone from 1.078 to around 1.015 after two weeks in primary.

As there was a load of trub I have racked to secondary where I have done a diacetyl rest (ringwood yeast) and I am planning to cold crash and then clear with gelatine and polyclar.

I still have some ringwood left so would it be worthwhile to use this yeast to make a small starter and add to bottling bucket when priming to assist with carbonation and conditiong?

Scott

 

[peas_and_corn]

Nah, you'll still have enough yeast in suspension.

 

[Mr. No-Tip]

There will be yeast in suspension, yes, but 1.078-1.015 is 78% apparent attenuation. The wyeast site says the yeast does 68-72% attenuation, so it's already gone further than expected.

I posted a similar issue for my DIPA a couple years ago. I had pushed US05 too hard and it never carbed up. I got schooled on attenuation, which was not something I really considered at that time.

You may have super vital yeast and you may be fine. It may be slow. It may be dead. Personally, given my previous experience, I'd either keg it, or add the yeast. Not really sure what the alc level will do, but that yeast is apparently good to 10%?

 

[Mr. No-Tip]

Oh, and to give a different experience in the interests of balance, I had a Belgian earlier this year that ended up going to 94% AA or something stupid like that. 1.071 down to 1.004.

That was well beyond the range of the yeast, but I figured "it's a belgian it will be fine". I gave it three autumnal weeks in the bottle and it was still flat as ATAC. Very disappointing but I put it into a fermentation chamber at 22, agitated the bottles every day, and it did carb up in another two weeks.

 

[supertonio]

It had a bit sugar in it to assist in the attenuation and make sure it wasn't too heavy.

My thoughts are that after working so hard the yeast may be lazy so therefore more yeast added at bottling will ensure good carbonation. its not so much yeast thats left after fermentation but the state of the yeast.

Been reading brew like a monk and it seems common for big belgians to have more yeast added so I feel I should apply this to other big beers...cant really see the harm in doing it...

 

[Mr. No-Tip]

Would you be interested in trying 1/2 or 1/4 of the batch without extra yeast? It would be good for the collective knowledge to try a semi controlled experiment - does all the batch carbonate? to the same degree? in the same time? how long does it take for the yeasted batch to clear up compared to the unyeasted, etc...

 

[supertonio]

Could be worthwhile...will let you know how I get on...

 

[verysupple]

There will be yeast in suspension, yes, but 1.078-1.015 is 78% apparent attenuation. The wyeast site says the yeast does 68-72% attenuation, so it's already gone further than expected.

I posted a similar issue for my DIPA a couple years ago. I had pushed US05 too hard and it never carbed up. I got schooled on attenuation, which was not something I really considered at that time.

You may have super vital yeast and you may be fine. It may be slow. It may be dead. Personally, given my previous experience, I'd either keg it, or add the yeast. Not really sure what the alc level will do, but that yeast is apparently good to 10%?

The ADF isn't the thing that may hurt the yeast, it's the alcohol content as you kind of hinted at. 1.078 down to 1.015 is about 8.2 % alcohol which seems pretty safe if the manufacturer's specs say the tolerance is ~10 %.

From my limited experience with high gravity/high alcohol fermentations I'd say you'll be fine without adding more yeast.

The important thing to remember is that fresh yeast don't like being put straight into an alcohilc environment. So if you do go the fresh yeast route it needs to be metabolically active when added to the beer. i.e. make a small starter. It'd be best to add it at high krausen.

EDIT: I should add that my high alcohol brews did take a little longer to carb up, but they needed much more time conditioning than it took to carb anyway. So the carbonation was fine when it was time to drink them.

 

[The Judge]

As there was a load of trub I have racked to secondary where I have done a diacetyl rest (ringwood yeast) and I am planning to cold crash and then clear with gelatine and polyclar.

Perhaps off topic, but shouldn't a diacetyl rest be done in primary just before racking to secondary? Maybe it's 6 of one, half a dozen of the other.

Edit: correcting my stupid predictive text that typed dactyl.. like some kind of prehistoric resting period.