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Low Carbonation

cowboy up

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My question is: If I lager a beer for 3-4 months do I need to add additional dry yeast at bottling time? If so how much would I need to add? I use 5 oz. of corn sugar when I bottle. Thanks, Cowboy Up!!  :)
 
If I understand what your thinking (Because it was my thought also). IE: Will there be yeast in suspension for bottle conditioning. The answer is yes, however not much. This will extend the time needed for carbonation. I have had to wait up to 3 weeks for even the slightest hint of carbonation. That being said, moving my lagers to kegs and force carbing them made the beer drinkable that much sooner.

Yes you can add more yeast to the bottling bucket for carbonation, it wont hurt anything. I would try to keep it the same strain of yeast, in an effort to keep the same flavor profile from the yeast.

Cheers
Preston
 
Thanks Preston for the advice. Yes I would use the same strain of yeast for bottling, but how much should I use? I am not sure where to start. Would it be wise to start with say 8 grams or 10 grams or more? I think it would be a good thing to rehydrate the dry yeast first and then mix the slurry with the bottling sugar (after the sugar water has cooled) and then rack the beer to the bottling bucket. I'm just not sure how much yeast to add.        Cowboy Up!  :)
 
I've wanted to do that for a Belgian but never have.  But thinking it through, a full 10g package can ferment ~five gallons of ~1.052 wort by itself.  That's 640 oz of all types of wort sugars.  Depending on how you prime, you might be adding just 16oz of diluted corn sugar water (easily fermented) to 640 oz of dried out, non-fermentable beer.  Any amount of fresh yeast should jump all over that CS. 

So, I don't think it would take much added fresh yeast to do the job.  The only risk of too-much that comes to mind is whether the yeast is a good flocculator so you don't get yeast-cloudy beer in the bottle.  Dry yeast is cheap enough I think if I were doing it, I'd hydrate it all and use some smaller fraction, trying to add just enough to get it done. 
 
How Much Yeast? I don't know! I would say to start off with hydrate the entire package, but only use half of the slurry. The fresh yeast will be hungry and as long as there is very little air in suspension you should be fine. However, the more I think about this, the less I personally would use. The reasoning is this. You don't want there to be a mini krausen in the bottle. that would be a bad thing! You just want enough yeast to consume the sugars for carbonation. I personally have had to much yeast in the bottom of a bottle before.

Like I said in the beginning of this post, I don't know. Is it 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, the smallest denominator may be the way to go in this instance. The worst thing that can happen would be it taking more time to carbonate.

Please let us know what you come up with and how it worked out for future reference. I will check Mr. Malty and post what I find later.

Cheers
Preston
 
Thanks Preston, I just put a batch of Munich Helles in the frig for lagering and I will add some yeast to the bottling bucket when I bottle. Probably in about 4-6 weeks. I think your advise about using a smaller amount rather than a larger amount is good thinking. I never gave any thought to having a problem with a head of krausen in the bottles! I'll be sure to post the amount of yeast I add and how it turns out after conditioning for a couple of weeks. Thanks again,  Cowboy Up!!    :)
 
Here is the update on my low carbonation problem. I lagered my all grain Munich Helles for 36 days at 42 deg. I used 5 oz. of corn sugar along with 2 grams of SafLager S-23 yeast. The same yeast I used in the recipe. After a week I popped open two bottles of the beer and the results were sporadic. One was carbonated and one was not. Waited one more week and checked again and the carbonation was perfect. Nice head of foam and nice foam ring all the way down the glass! My pre-boil gravity was 1.056, my OG 1.069, and my FG 1.013. It turned out to be a great beer. Thanks to all for your input. I hope this will help someone else that has the same problem I had.  :)
 
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