www.nthba.org

I have been having problems with carbonation using the corked Belgian 750's. In an attempt to rectify the problem, I shot an e-mail to Lost Abbey to see if they had any words of wisdom. As I figured the information might be of general interest here is both my original question and kind reply:

Bill


Thanks for the email. All of our beers are bottled conditioned. In order to make things work in the bottles, we grow up fresh dried yeast on packaging day.
The process for bottle conditioning and corking can be tough. Are you sure the corks aren't holding pressure? If so, no amount of yeast work would change this.
I would say first get the process nailed down in a bottle with a cap to ensure your process works then try the corks?
As for sour beers, we have found that these can be quite tough to bottle consistently. Personally, I have always found a white wine yeast to be the best.
Beyond that, it truly helps to have active brett as they don't mind the environment so much

Hope this helps
Tomme Arthur
Director of Brewery Operations
Port Brewing and The Lost Abbey





I am a homebrewer and make alot of Belgian abbey beers which I like to bottle in Belgian 750's and cork. When I do this I naturally carbonate 'cause well, it's just cooler that way. Anywhow, I am have alot of problems with under/no carbonation and I don't think its because the seal on the corks is leaking. I have tried over-yeasting but still experience problems, even with my sours to some extent. Somebody told me you guys have a cure for this issue, is there any chance you would be willing to share?

You may have heard me stating that Brewery Ommegang bottle conditions at 90 degrees Fahrenheit. I've since looked at their web site, and it says 75 degrees. I cannot recall where I got that information, but it seems untrue or outdated.

Regardless, fresh yeast should help. You do need to treat it well though. If using dry yeast rehydrate. Then there are all the other things about pitching that might also apply.

I still think bottle conditioning at a warmer temperature is not all that bad for an ale, but what about a lager?

Well, I hope like hell that the advice I received works out. I bottled up a batch of Abbey Dubbel Sunday and over-yeasted with dried wine yeast. If I have it together, I'll bottle up a batch of Oud Bruin that is waiting and ready to go this coming weekend and I'll do exactly the same thing (except of course I have wild bugs going in the Oud Bruin, I'm blending and new batch and some from my solera which is a couple years old so those little suckers are alive and well). I would much rather wait and see if this works on the Dubbel but I need the space so I'll take a chance and hope things work out. I must say however that I really, really hate bottling; if I didn't have kegs I suspect I would have quit this hobby many years ago and concentrated on the consumption side.

I did however make a nice discovery while rooting around in my cases of bottles. I have some Saison that I "bretted" and is now a couple years old in champagne bottles. This stuff has developed some really neat flavors, they have a cool little fruity thing going on but the beer is reasonably dry. I guess the trick with that stuff is to wait a really long time before expecting it to get good. I also started a solera of Olde Ale late this summer and I am somewhat tempted to "brett" that stuff as well for blending, we'll see what I ultimately end up doing with that.

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Bill, which strand of yeast did you use? I have been following this post to see how things develop. I have two flat bombers of bottle conditioned Baltic porter remaining. I've thought to try K1V-1116 and EC-1118. The 1116 is a "killer" said to destroy the residual yeast when carbing the bottle. Both should do the trick but I've been transferring the beer to plastic coke bottles and carbing with a carbonation cap. The bottles have been going over two months at room temperature. They fizz but pour like malt syrup.

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1116. Supposedly, that is what they use at Lost Abbey.