I only do bottle conditioning with priming sugar (5 oz corn sugar per 5 gallon) and recently had a batch with no carbonation. I either forgot to add the priming sugar altogether or I didn't have enough yeast in the bottling bucket is my conclusion. It was also the first time I had ever tried a new liquid yeast from realbrewersyeast.com called, "Lucky 7" (ironic).
Nico told me he believed it may have sat in secondary too long and all the yeast died or went to sleep. It was in primary for 11 days and transferred to secondary for about another month while it was dry hopped. We talked about adding more yeast at bottling for the purpose of good bottle conditioning. We just didn't have any experience with it.
When would you add more yeast for bottle conditioning and how would you go about doing it? Re-hydrating or not? How much would you use?
I have transferred my beer before into 4 different carboys(for dry hopping) with no added yeast other than the original safale-05 dry yeast in the primary. That beer carbonated beautifully from normal bottle conditioning without any added yeast.
I could be totally wrong but I would think the easiest way to add fresh yeast for bottle conditioning would be to use dry yeast. Figure out how many grams per bottle then add to each bottle.
here is a segment from John Palmers hoe to Brew site:
Chapter 11 - Priming and Bottling
11.7 Priming and Bottling Lager Beer
Ninety five percent of the time there is no difference between priming for lager beer and priming ale. But once in a while you will need to add fresh yeast for priming and carbonation purposes. This is most common when the beer is given a long cold lagering for more than two months. If the beer is very clear at bottling time, then the majority of the yeast may have settled out and there may not be enough left to carbonate the beer in the bottle. Prepare some fresh yeast of the same strain and mix it with the priming solution when you rack the beer to the bottling bucket. You will not need as much as you originally pitched to the wort, only about 1/4 - 1/2 cup of slurry for 5 gallons.
Since the yeast is being added for carbonation during the storage phase of the beer, there are a couple of differences in procedure from that used to ferment the original wort. Grow the yeast at the temperature you will be carbonating and storing the beer at (usually room temperature) instead of the original pitching temperature. This will produce more esters than the yeast normally would, but the percentage of sugar that is being fermented for carbonation at this stage is so small that the added difference in taste is unnoticeable. The reason for doing it this way is to avoid thermally shocking the yeast and to speed up the carbonation time. It is not necessary to store the beer cold after lagering. The beer can be stored at room temperature without affecting the taste of the beer.
Thanks you. That's a very helpful bit of information. I've guilty of not reading enough about my hobby and finding things out by trial and error. John Palmer did write what I call, the "Beer Bible", so I will take his word as gospel.
