Bottle Carbonation Experiment

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FlyGuy

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Recently, there have been an unusually high number of threads on the topic of secondary fermenters and bottle carbonation. Specifically, a number of users have been discussing leaving a beer in the secondary for an extended period of time (e.g., an imperial stout) to bulk condition, and then wondering if adding yeast is a requirement or not to ensure carbonation in the bottle. Alternatively, a number of people have reported very slow carbonation after spending a prolonged period in the secondary, while others have reported no problems whatsoever.

I know that there are a lot of variables at work here, but I wonder if it would be possible to generalize about whether adding yeast is necessary at bottling. I have adopted that approach because I am cautious, but I was thinking this would make a great experiment.

I have a big porter that has been in the secondary for over three months, and I have decided to bottle it up. My plan is to bottle some without adding any yeast, and the other bottles with some dry yeast added. Then I can compare directly how fast each sub-batch carbonates, and whether the end product is different once carbonation is complete (assuming it all completes in the first set of bottles).

If anyone else has done this already or wants to try it, I will happily compile the results by yeast type, length of time spent in the secondary, etc.
 
Great idea. I just bottled a Hofbrauhaus clone that had been sitting in the secondary for 60 days. I did not add yeast. I've got an Oktoberfest that's been sitting in the secondary for at least 90 days that needs to be bottled but I don't have enough bottles. Just to make sure I understand, in order to help you with your experiment I should bottle a case without yeast then add yeast to the remaining beer before I finish bottling it? I'm willing to give it a go, but I'm not sure how soon because I've only got about 1/2 case of bottles, and I hate spending money on empty bottles. I guess I'll just have to drink more beer.
 
IowaStateFan said:
Great idea. I just bottled a Hofbrauhaus clone that had been sitting in the secondary for 60 days. I did not add yeast. I've got an Oktoberfest that's been sitting in the secondary for at least 90 days that needs to be bottled but I don't have enough bottles. Just to make sure I understand, in order to help you with your experiment I should bottle a case without yeast then add yeast to the remaining beer before I finish bottling it? I'm willing to give it a go, but I'm not sure how soon because I've only got about 1/2 case of bottles, and I hate spending money on empty bottles. I guess I'll just have to drink more beer.
Yes, exactly. It would probably be best if you racked to the bottling bucket, stirred in the priming sugar thoroughly to ensure consistency, and then bottle a case. After that, mix the yeast in thoroughly (it would have to be rehyrdated yeast, I think), and bottle the remainder.
 
FlyGuy said:
Yes, exactly. It would probably be best if you racked to the bottling bucket, stirred in the priming sugar thoroughly to ensure consistency, and then bottle a case. After that, mix the yeast in thoroughly (it would have to be rehyrdated yeast, I think), and bottle the remainder.
Got it. That's what I was thinking. I'll try that and get back to you. Now if I can just find some bottles:rolleyes:
 
IowaStateFan said:
I just bottled a Hofbrauhaus clone that had been sitting in the secondary for 60 days. I did not add yeast.
FWIW, I just opened one of the Hofbrauhaus clones after one week in the bottles. Not only was it carbonated, the head took up half the glass - and I was pouring carefully. As for the Oktoberfest, I racked it to secondary on March 22nd, so as of today it's been in the secondary for 97 days. I've been "lagering" both of these beers in my crawlspace at about 45 - 50 degrees. Based on the HB clone I don't expect to see any difference with yeast or without on the Oktoberfest, but I'll run the experiment - as soon as I have enough bottles.
 
This should be cool. I have personally noticed slow carbonation with beer that has been in secondary for a long time. Course, like you said there are quite a few factors going on. Make sure to post what methods of yeast pitching (ie, liquid, dry, amount of starter, etc) as I am guessing this would have an influence on the amount of yeast available at bottling. (I'll assume the beer was finished out completely). Temperature of carbonation is another key thing to record. Was it an ale yeast moved to a cooler place, a lager moved to a warmer one...just throwing out some of the variables to help ensure a thorough evaluation.

That all being said, as long as you have a single batch and do everything else completely identically then it can indeed give some insight to the issue.
 
I'm one of the people that started a thread asking about whether it's necessary to add yeast at bottling if you have a long secondary so I'm very interested to hear how this turns out. I have a tripel that's been in the secondary for two weeks and a stout that I'm racking tonight. I'm tempted to leave both for an extended period of time just so that I can run this same test with both batches.
 
Yikes, I have some good direct info, but my batches were very high gravity, and that was the cause for my experiment with 2 batches and Bottle carbing. The high alcohol level and concern over the yeast's alcohol tolerance were the concern there, not time in secondary.
Oh well, that is one of those "other factors" that you may not have wanted to deal with, but most beers left in secondary for long periods of time are high gravity, and therefore need a longer conditioning. Anyways use it or don't
Batch A - added yeast to the priming sugar and H2O, let it go an hour, bottled
Batch B - added no yeast, primed and bottled as usual.
(both used White Labs "irish ale" yeast)
1 week ago, after 1 month in the bottle: Batch A - perfect carbonation. Batch B - only a tiny bit of carbonation.
Good project, I started a similar thread and someone I will not name informed me that"All but the most pennyless of brewers would just get a kegging system". I hope you all don't get any of that.
 
Instead of adding dry yeast, how bout bottling the first half from the carboy that has been "at rest" and then bottle the second half after stirring up the yeast cake with your racking cane a bit.

I gotta beleive you have a 1/2 " of good clean yeast at settled at the bottom.
 
BierMuncher said:
Instead of adding dry yeast, how bout bottling the first half from the carboy that has been "at rest" and then bottle the second half after stirring up the yeast cake with your racking cane a bit.

I gotta beleive you have a 1/2 " of good clean yeast at settled at the bottom.

Not to kiss your #$%%, but sometimes it takes a genius to see the simplest solution. I will say no more. That may just work.Thanks.
 
cheezydemon said:
Not to kiss your #$%%, but sometimes it takes a genius to see the simplest solution. I will say no more. That may just work.Thanks.
Just tryin to save you some yeast.

I got in the habit this winter of giving my long-secondary beers a bit of a stir to get some yeast into those bottles.
 
BierMuncher said:
Instead of adding dry yeast, how bout bottling the first half from the carboy that has been "at rest" and then bottle the second half after stirring up the yeast cake with your racking cane a bit.

I gotta beleive you have a 1/2 " of good clean yeast at settled at the bottom.
Yeah, I think many of us already do this, but at least in my experience, it doesn't help much, if at all.

A typical reason for leaving your beer in the secondary for an extended period of time is to bulk condition a high gravity beer. Unfortunately, the yeast really have to work hard to metabolize all those fermentables, and then at the end of all that, they are living in a high alcohol, somewhat toxic environment. Anyways, the net effect is that the yeast may not be in good shape at the end of a few months of conditioning in the secondary, especially if hey have flocculated out of suspension. I think this could be the cause of slow carbonation after bottling -- but I guess this should be tested, too.

Here is a potential three-way comparison from beer bottled from one batch:

1. Beer with no yeast added.
2. Beer with dry yeast added.
3. Beer and some additional flocculated yeast from bottom of fermenter.

If I can figure out the logistics of this, I will try to give it a shot. Should make for an interesting comparison. Thanks for the input guys.
 
Thought I'd give you an update. It's taken awhile, but I finally got my Marzen bottled.

I brewed this beer on March 3rd and racked it to secondary on March 22nd - 19 days later. It "lagered" in my crawlspace until July 28th - 128 days ( or 4 months). The crawlspace is unheated and was in the upper 30s or low 40s in March. It warmed up over the spring and summer and was probably in the mid 50s when I pulled the secondary out for bottling.

Per our conversations in this thread, I bottled 1/2 the batch as I normally do and then added yeast to the remaining 1/2 in the bottling bucket. I primed the beer with 4 ounces of corn sugar and bottled 28 bottles. The yeast I used was Safale US 56. I rehydrated the entire pack in 1 cup of boiled and cooled water. I added the entire cup of yeast slurry to the remaining beer. I stirred it as best I could without aerating it. The beer with the yeast was very cloudy and had some clumps of yeast. There were 27 bottles with yeast added. The bottles have been stored in my closet at room temperature (68 - 70).

Today, 8 days after bottling, I sampled two bottles. The first had no added yeast. It gave a very noticeable pfft when I opened it. Good sign!! However, when I poured it there were a few bubbles but no head. Almost like it wanted to be carbonated, but was not ready. Tasted okay, but it was flat.

Second bottle had the added yeast. Looking thru the bottle, it was as clear as the first, but had a much thicker layer of yeast on the bottom of the bottle. It too gave the pfft sound when I opened it. I couldn't really tell if it was any louder or not. When I poured it into the glass, it was definately carbonated. There were some decent bubbles and a small head that disappeared relatively quickly. It's clearly not finished carbonating, but it is much farther along than the first one without yeast.

My first impression is that there is enough yeast in suspension even after 4 months in the secondary to carbonate the beer. It just appears that it will take longer. It also appears that adding yeast increases the amount of yeast at the bottom of the bottle - duh. For me that's a negative. I'd rather give it a little extra time in the bottles to minimize the yeast layer.

I'll check back in a couple of weeks with an update after they've had time to really carbonate.
 
I just made a 1.065 gravity Robust Porter yesterday that should finish out around 1.017. I plan on aging this sucker until Christmas eve and wonder the advantages of doing a bulk aging rather than a bottle aging? I ask because this thread brought up the question in relation to big beers. Not that this is particularly big, but it's definitely bigger than the average 1.050...
 
IowaStateFan said:
Thought I'd give you an update. It's taken awhile, but I finally got my Marzen bottled....
Cool -- thanks for the update ISF! I will be really interested to hear how they compare in a couple weeks when (presumably) carbonation is complete.

I think my porter must be ready to bottle now. I tasted it a few weeks ago and it wasn't quite ready yet -- still not smooth enough. But I am anxious to try this experiment too.

Cheers! :mug:
 
IowaStateFan said:
...Today, 8 days after bottling, I sampled two bottles. The first had no added yeast. It gave a very noticeable pfft when I opened it. Good sign!! However, when I poured it there were a few bubbles but no head. Almost like it wanted to be carbonated, but was not ready. Tasted okay, but it was flat.
...

I think the sweet spot for carbonation falls right betweent the 16th & 21st day...for most of my beers anyway.
 
BierMuncher said:
I think the sweet spot for carbonation falls right betweent the 16th & 21st day...for most of my beers anyway.

Yeah, I normally wait at least 2 weeks before sampling. However, for this experiment I wanted to see if there was any noticeable difference in the time it takes to carbonate. FWIW, the beer with the yeast added did have slightly more carbonation, but it still had a long way to go. I will try again this weekend.
 
Nearly 3 months after bottling 2 high gravity brews (both had exceeded the expected alcohol tolerance for white labs irish ale yeast)

Batch 1 had no yeast added at bottling. It has a hint of carbonation now,

Batch 2 I boiled 2 cups of water with the priming sugar, cooled it, added the yeast (muntons dry) and let the yeast get all foamy (1 hr or so) before bottling as usual. This batch has a perfect amount of carbonation now.
 
3 week update:

Today is 3 weeks from bottling day. I chilled 2 bottles yesterday and popped them open today. I did not detect a noticeable difference in either beer. When I poured them into the glass both had a very small head (<< 1") that did last until I finished the glass of beer. Both had bubbles rising from the bottom the entire time. They were just not completely carbonated. I'm not sure if that is because I used less priming sugar, or if they just need a bit more time. I had been using 4.5 ounces of priming sugar, but my beers just seem to have nothing but head when I pour them. I reduced the sugar on this batch to 4 ounces. They've been sitting in my closet for 3 weeks at about 70 degrees. I plan on letting them sit for another two or three weeks before I start drinking them in ernest (it is an Oktoberfest after all). I'll let you know how it comes out, but my take on this is that there is still plenty of yeast for carbonation, even after 4 months in the secondary.
 
I had nearly forgotten about this thread. Several weeks back when I bottled my Belgian and stout I split a packet of yeast between them. I haven't popped any open yet to see how they're doing but I wanted to mention that in my case even though I stirred as best I could without aerating all the yeast seemed to fall to the bottom of my bottling bucket while bottling so I don't know that adding it helped all that much.

To add the yeast I boiled a pint of water with 4 oz. of corn sugar, cooled and added the yeast. Let that hydrate for 30 minutes or so and then swirled it up and poured it into the bottling bucket. I then stirred the contents of the bottling bucket every 6 bottles or so.
 
I guess I have sort of forgotten about this too. I had better get my porter bottled and my instance of the experiment underway, too. Thanks for the reminder!
 
I saved this post and wanted to remark because I have also done this little experiment of adding a bit of yeast to the bottles. I cold conditioned an altbier for 2 months and wanted to submit it to a homebrew competition. Well, being that I was crunched for time, I had exactly 3 weeks to carbonate the bottles. I decided to bottle 6 by adding a bit of nottingham yeast, and 6 without adding any yeast. (the rest to the keg for my own consumption!)

After 2 weeks in the bottles I had to decide which to mail to the competition, so I tested them at the 2 week mark. There was a definite difference in the final product. The "yeast added" brew had a strong full head that lasted till the end. The carbonation was very good, yet the flavor did have a slight "yeasty" taste. The "no yeast added" brew had little to no head, but it did taste as though the carbonation was there.

From my one time experiment I believe that adding yeast will reduce the time it takes for optimal carbonation, but if you add too much yeast it may detract from the taste of the beer....which I feel that I did add too much yeast. I was amazed to compare the sediment cake at the bottom of the bottles before pouring. The yeast added bottle had quite a bit of sediment as expected, and the no yeast added bottle had an impressive layer of yeast as well.

In the end I sent the "no yeast added" bottles to the competition hoping that another week in the bottle would give it all that it needs. For the hassle that it took and the off flavors of adding too much yeast I don't think I would do this again.

By the way it was my first entrance into any competition, so we'll see how it goes. Looking forward to seeing the judging sheets!

Edit: The original yeast used was Wyeast 1007 German ale
 
Joe028 said:
...The "yeast added" brew had a strong full head that lasted till the end. The carbonation was very good, yet the flavor did have a slight "yeasty" taste....
This is why I never prime my kegs to carbonate.

Yeast has its place during the creation of beer. But once it's done its job...get the heck outta my beer. (except a good hefe...:D)
 
Is there any danger of bottle bombs when adding yeast to the bottling bucket? Or does it not matter as long as you dont add too much priming sugar, or there isn't much residual sugars left?
 
bigben said:
Is there any danger of bottle bombs when adding yeast to the bottling bucket? Or does it not matter as long as you dont add too much priming sugar, or there isn't much residual sugars left?

Yeast won't produce co2 withough sugar. The worst thing that happens is the more yeast you have, the thicker the sludge layer at the bottom...
 
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