Priming bottles with yeast.

[Poldrakes]

OK, total Noob question here, so please be gentle.

Brewed 3 batches of an all grain APA. First was very flat but tasty. Second we primed with sugar, decent carbonation. Third batch went in to primary last night and we would like to reseed with yeast rather than prime with sugar when bottling.

Any advice/guidelines to follow?

If you need more info please ask away, we are very receptive to ideas/criticisms.

Thanks

 

[LarryBrewer]

Yeast alone will not carbonate the beer, unless the beer has not reached its final gravity (meaning there is still residual unfermented sugar present in the beer). The carbonation comes from the yeast eating the sugar, creating CO2 as a byproduct, that CO2 is trapped in the bottle and dissolves into the beer, which makes it fizz when you open it.

For most beers, especially ales, there is enough yeast in suspension to make carbonation happen. You just need to feed them a little more sugar. For now, stick with priming sugar or DME. Later if you are doing all grain, you could get into advanced techniques like gyle/krausen priming, and we have a calculator for that here: http://www.brewersfriend.com/gyle-and-k ... alculator/

Adding fresh yeast is only necessary when bottle conditioning lagers since the yeast have gone through an extended cold conditioning phase (aka lagering phase). With most ales there will be enough yeast in suspension, unless this is something like a barely wine or extended age ale, or it was filtered.

 

[Nosybear]

I've never run into any problem bottle conditioning lagers without adding back yeast, either. There are always a few cells in suspension and when you add priming sugar and oxygen (in the head room) those guys fire back up, begin to reproduce and, maybe in a bit more time than for a two-week old ale, you have a nice, fizzy beer! If the beer absolutely doesn't carbonate, there may be another problem.

 

[fauxpunker]

Awesome timing on this question. I've brewed my first higher gravity beer (probably going to land about 9.5%). It's been 26 days since brew day, and I plan to let it go another 3 and a half weeks aging in the secondary. I was afraid the yeast wouldn't be viable for carbonation by that point. But, from the sound of things, I should be good to go with just corn sugar rather than a small sugar/yeast induction at bottle time?

 

[Nosybear]

I just finished two 10.5% beers and both bottle conditioned with no additional yeast and no problems. Mantra (repeat ad infinitude): Relax, don't worry, have a home brew. Ommmmm.... :lol:

 

[fauxpunker]

Drinking some now!