Adding Yeast for Bottling

[brewinhard]

You have no worries with the champagne yeast continuing to ferment your finished beer over time. at least not from what I have experienced even after having bottles age for 1.5 yrs with no drop in gravity. As far as temperature is concerned regarding lagers, I have always just gone with the traditional temperature of the beer at the exact time of bottling even if it was lagered for a month. To give you a good example of how this worked for me, I lagered a 9% belgian tripel at 38 deg, in a keg for 2 mos. After that time, I let the beer warm up to room temps over the course of a couple days, then racked from the keg into a bottling bucket with the proper amount of priming sugar (according to the nomograph) to get me 3.4 vol. in the bottle using the room temp as my beer temps at bottling. The beer came out well carbonated for a tripel and went on to take some hardware in local comps.

[Fugglupagus]

. . . . . . I let the beer warm up to room temps over the course of a couple days, then racked from the keg into a bottling bucket with the proper amount of priming sugar (according to the nomograph) to get me 3.4 vol. in the bottle using the room temp as my beer temps at bottling. The beer came out well carbonated for a tripel and went on to take some hardware in local comps.

That makes sense. It's the warmest the beer has been since the start of fermentation, so you know it's CO2 saturated. That also closes the temperature gap between beer and rehydrated champagne yeast.

I am presently fermenting a Czech Pils that I want to finish fermentation around 58 and clear in secondary around 36. My initial plan was to bottle at 36 with enuf priming sugar for 58. I like the idea of the residual fermentation yeast warming to room temp in the bottle with the priming sugar. But if I pitch more yeast, your way makes more sense.

The Session show I mentioned. Yeast speak starts at about 39 minutes.

[Fugglupagus]

The Shea Comfort Session show is really good. However I came away with couple of worrisome things regarding the use of wine yeast in beer. The biggest is that there are compatibility issues between wine yeast and beer yeast. Some yeasts gain a competitive edge in food media by secreting a protein that is toxic to other yeasts. Yeasts are therefore classified based on their ability to "actively" compete with other yeast by both producing and being tolerant to the protein, or by being "neutral" by neither producing nor being affected by the protein, or by being "sensitive" by simply dying in the presence of the protein. According to Mr. Comfort, all beer yeasts are sensitive. According to Lallemand, EC1118 is an active killer. This means that any beer yeast still suspended in the beer when bottling with EC1118 will be dead long before carbonation occurs. So depending on the quality of the initial beer fermentation, the flocculation properties of the beer yeast, and how long the beer was aged before bottling with EC1118, there could be decent chunk of dead yeast going into the bottled product. To me, that doesn't sound like the epitome of deliciousness.

I guess the proof is in the pudding. Time to chill a couple of test beers.

[Fugglupagus]

Champagne yeast did not work for me. I've picked up an intense plastic smell and flavor that makes my barely carbonated beer undrinkable. I'm going to throw this batch in a corner of my basement and forget about it for a while.

I'm not sure why Brewinhard has success with this and I do not. But if anyone is interested in bottling with Champagne yeast, I'd suggest two things. First, age the beer so that is as clear as possible before introducing the wine yeast. Second and most important, don't be a dumb ass like me. Bottle 3/4+ of your batch like normal, add a small amount of EC1118 to the beer remaining in your bottling bucket, then bottle the last 6-12 beers. That way if it doesn't work, you've only botched a part of a batch.