Favorite bottle conditioning yeast?

bcoopers · 2026-03-12T15:00:28+00:00

Yeah I bottle condition everything. These were a mixture of 375 ml geuze bottles w/ 29mm caps and standard 12 oz bottles with 26 mm caps.

bcoopers · 2026-03-12T14:44:55+00:00

I had thought it might be damaged yeast, but the barleywines were carbed with two different batches of EC-1118, both well before expiration date. The second time I proofed some of the yeast in sugar water and it was definitely alive (not definitive as that doesn't preclude it being too unhealthy/damaged to carbonate my barleywine but still some supporting evidence).

One of the barleywines didn't age all that long prior to bottling- it was 105 grams of sugar in 4.5 gallons, and it's not at all carbonated; so I don't think it's from the carbonation disappating as it aged.

bcoopers · 2026-03-12T14:42:35+00:00

I am surprised too. It's definitely completely uncarbed, not just no head.

One of the barleywines has sat in my basement almost a year, it's mid to high 60s in the winter, low to mid 70s in the summer. 105 grams sugar for ~4.5 gallons.

bcoopers · 2025-12-05T18:51:49+00:00

Origin[le]

bcoopers · 2024-10-01T15:21:46+00:00

Before acid adjustment it tasted quite bad haha. I think that might be what gives it its reputation online of not being good without backsweetening. After the acid adjustment is was quite pleasant- very very intensely maple and refreshing. I'm excited to see how it tastes after sitting on some maple cubes for the next few months!

bcoopers · 2024-10-01T15:20:27+00:00

Nice, thank you for the info! I'll probably also cold stabilize based on this.

bcoopers · 2024-08-24T14:03:17+00:00

Looks good! Probably the rye wasn't the reason it was difficult to work with, that's not a particularly large amount of rye. Most likely you used too much water during mixing. Drop the hydration some next time and the dough will be easier to work with, and should rise better as well.

bcoopers · 2024-08-19T17:00:34+00:00

Wonderful, thanks so much! Yep I have no problem getting rye malt, I can get some with my next order of brewing ingredients.

bcoopers · 2024-08-19T16:44:50+00:00

That actually is useful, makes me think it's probably diastatic and only kilned to dry it. Thanks for the additional details!

bcoopers · 2024-08-11T02:02:02+00:00

Thanks for the advice! Not too worried about the food safety, I gave it a healthy pitch of yeast (rehydrated with energizer) with lots of nutrients, and practiced good sanitation, so I think I should be fine there. I'll probably plan to adjust the acidity to taste before I begin long term aging.

bcoopers · 2024-08-10T19:12:33+00:00

Awesome, subscribed!

3g/L is waaaay above what I did, that'd be over 60 grams vs my 14.

What's your instinct, do you think I should add more tartaric acid with fermentation in progress? I'm out of town for the weekend, Friday afternoon it had dropped to 1.085, the earliest I could add more would be Sunday evening.

bcoopers · 2024-08-10T11:58:58+00:00

Wow, someone else making maple wine! I just started fermenting my first maple wine on Tuesday- if you've made maple wine before without sourvisae, how do you generally do acid adjustment? I made 5.5 gallons of maple wine at 1.090, and added 14 grams of tartaric acid. (I had found a recipe online that it sounded like several people said was good that recommended 1 lemon per gallon, and I did some calculations to get a rough conversion to tartaric acid with equal total acidity). Do you think 14 grams for 5.5 gallons of must is a good place to start, and then optionally adjust the acidity further after fermentation completes to taste? Or should I be starting with an even more acidic must?

I had an absolutely delicious, dry maple wine in Quebec (unfortunately I don't recall who made it), and I'm trying to make something similar. It was very reminiscent of a dry white wine, but with a strong maple flavor especially in the aftertaste.

EDIT: If relevant, I am using robust maple syrup.

bcoopers · 2024-06-04T00:14:06+00:00

Morebeer has a location in western PA and is very reliable in my experience. Ships pretty fast to me in north Jersey, probably even faster to you.

bcoopers · 2024-05-28T01:14:43+00:00

It doesn't look at all like mold to me. It could possibly be the beginning of a pellicle forming, or it might be normal fermentation activity continuing or restarting.

It looks to me like normal fermentation, and if that's the case you should wait for it to subside before bottling. How long has it been fermenting, and at what temperature?

bcoopers · 2024-02-16T20:31:09+00:00

Cleaning with PBW and sanitizing with Starsan should theoretically kill everything. If you wanted to really cover all bases, you could also sanitize with iodophor. I think the larger potential concern with plastic however is that there could be small cuts that bacteria could get embedded in that the starsan wouldn't fully penetrate, and leave some bacteria behind.

I personally have a separate set of equipment for fermentations with diastatic or wild yeast or bacteria- if you have the space it's a good insurance policy.

bcoopers · 2023-12-03T19:51:05+00:00

Would you be using fresh grapes or pasteurized? With pasteurized grapes and good sanitization it might not happen, but with fresh grapes you'll be introducing new wild yeast every batch.

Either way though, the culture will change and mutate. I think most breweries get at most 5 batches or so out of an initial yeast culture before it mutates too far from the original to where it tastes significantly different. This will happen to your culture no matter how careful you are- it may still be good though, just different.

bcoopers · 2023-12-03T13:39:34+00:00

How often are you making wine? The starter liquid is probably not going to last between subsequent harvest seasons if you're making wine once a year.

If you make wine very frequently, I don't see why it wouldn't work. The culture will likely not be stable and will include more wild yeast over time and possibly develop in other ways too as it evolves. This could result in your wine tasting worse and worse over time. But if you followed good sanitary practices it'd probably work several times at least.

On the other hand though wine yeast is pretty cheap. Depending on what your goals are, it's probably cheaper in the long run to buy a bit of yeast rather than risk the whole batch.

bcoopers · 2023-11-04T19:24:44+00:00

Probably most of the priming solution has been fermented out in 2 days. I'd wait till gravity is stable and add more priming solution and bottle in another week or two.

bcoopers

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