Beer Forum

Brewing a bunch of big belgian beers soon. All will be a minimum OG of 1.100 with my max at 1.135. All sould ferment out to a TG 1.020 to 1.012 or lower depending the batch. All batches will be in primary for about a month, then a secondary(brite) for a minimum of 6-10 weeks. They will finally be cold crashed at 32 with gelatin for a week then bottled. Does anyone have experience with bottle conditioning and if so how do I proceed?
1) Based on the high ABV what yeast should I use?
2) How much yeast should I use and do I need to make a starter?(i.e. 1 tube wlp002 with a 250 ml starter)

I really want to use the minimum amount to get the job done so I don't have a huge amoumt of yeast in a beer I am taking so much time to conditioning and clearing. Oh...and no I don't want to keg it

Any help is apprecialted. I have come a long way in a short amoutn of time with my brewing thanks to Doc, Tasty, Jamil, Palmer, JP and even that infected tool Justin. Not to mention my fellow ' s in the chat and forum.

Pitch healthy active yeast, Pitch healthy active yeast, Pitch healthy active yeast, Pitch healthy active yeast, Pitch healthy active yeast, Pitch healthy active yeast. If you don't you will have a flat beer. Beers with such high gravity will kill the yeast, so I can't stress enough to Pitch healthy active yeast.

You need about 1/4 of a WL tube of yeast per 5 gallon. You might want to do a bit more just because of how high the gravity is.

Westco

I am also looking into bottle conditioning some big beers down the road once I aquire more carboys. I take it you would add yeast to the bottling bucket? And would it be advisable to make a starter with the yeast that will be used to bottle so it is active going in?

I show my yeast lots of love so they will be happy and healthy. Should I go with the white WLP099 the super high gravity and if so, should I take a 1/4 tube and make about a 500ml starter, decant and pitch into my bottling bucket?

For bottle conditioning big beers, champagne yeast works very well and is a lot cheaper than a tube of white labs. I used a half pack (rehydrated) to condition an 11.6% imperial stout and it was carbonated in less than two weeks. Next time I'll only use half as much though cause there's a more yeast in the bottle than I'd like now.

Nice...thanks......so I will try a 1/4 pack of champ. Yeast and hope for the best. How long was your RIS in primary and secondar?

It was in primary until it was done fermenting and cleaning up after itself so maybe a couple weeks (I used WLP007 and a lot of it!) and then I cold crashed it in the primary for a couple days before bottling.