Bottle Conditioning

[neoanto]

Guys,

I have a question about the yeast to use for bottle conditioning.
After i had an incident where I cold crashed and then bottled (with the addition of sugar to carbonate) my bottles ended up flat.
I ended up re-opening them and made a new mixture of some dry yeast and sugar to re-prime.
They carbonated fine then.

So in future i am going to always add a small amount of yeast when bottling (john palmer also recommends this, just to make sure they condition!)

So i am wondering could I use Young's Dry yeast, the one for beer and wine for conditioning?
Buying 10g yeast packs of Safale or others for a few euro and only using a quarter of a pack is a waste i think for just conditioning.

Would Young's Dry Yeast get the job done without adding off flavours?

[Leann ull]

Bottle condition, cold crash.

[Pheeel]

Even after cold crashing there should be plenty of yeast left in the beer to carbonate. If that wasn't the case then you could never naturally carb a lager or use additional finings such as gelatine

Do you need to cold crash? I would only ever bother if it's a very pale beer, in which case it was probably lagered anyway, or it's dry hopped

How much sugar did you add to carb the bottles the other time?

[Parky]

Even after cold crashing there should be plenty of yeast left in the beer to carbonate

+1

It's not usually necessary to add extra yeast at bottling time, and the lack of carbonation could point to an issue with the bottling process itself. In saying that I did have a Cali Common that didn't carbonate 'on schedule', problem was the temp I was conditioning at. Had to rouse the yeast in the bottle and move to a higher temp (20oC), and it came good a week or so later.

I wouldn't think the Young's yeast will add any off flavours, as you'll be adding a tiny amount at bottling, and it's a fairly neutral yeast. Thought I'd put down a few random thoughts on conditioning that might help -

1 If you're using a sanitiser like VWP to clean the bottles ensure they're thoroughly rinsed out before bottling.
2 Check your bottle caps - make sure crown caps are fully crimped on, and if you're using flip tops check that the rubber seal is good.
3 Batch prime for consistency across all bottles, regardless of size.
4 Condition bottles in a warm area ~20oC.
5 Use a priming calculator with metric units (some online calculators use US gallons instead of metric, which can throw your calculations off slightly)
6 Bottles normally carb within a few days, but no harm in rousing the yeast in the bottle and waiting a little longer if nothing's happening.

[neoanto]

I think my mistke this time was the sugar additions i used, which was quite low.
Mainly because the priming calculator says to input the temperature of the beer at bottling, mine was cold due to cold crashing. This lead to a low recommendation for sugar.
I'll know this in future, the fermenation temperature should be used.

But i was thinking it would be no harm to use a bit of yeast at bottling time, i batch prime btw, just to ensure they will condition.
I found the cold crashing helps to eliminate chill haze, maybe I'm wrong on that point?

[Qs]

I cold crash almost all my beers, even beer thats black as coal. I could be all in my head but feel like I get a cleaner tasting beer if its been cold crashed. I also gelatin most of my non-pitch black beers. I bottle condition about half my beers and they carb up fine. I also think cold-crashing leaves you with a bit less gunk in your bottles.

You are right about fermentation temp vs temp at the time of bottling when you crash the beer. And remember to take a note of how much sugar you use each time. Calculators are great but nothing compares to your own experience. If you say "that beer wasn't fizzy enough" then you can add a little more. Eventually you'll know yourself for your batch size what the medium point you like is and you can work out to add less or more yourself.

[irish_goat]

I cold crash almost all my beers, even beer thats black as coal. I could be all in my head but feel like I get a cleaner tasting beer if its been cold crashed. I also gelatin most of my non-pitch black beers.

Not in your head, the floaty bits don't taste clean.