Beer Forum

Very dumb question... I just started repitching yeast this year. I have done this on a few batches and 2 out of 3 has an abundance of yeast in the bottle after 1+ month of bottle conditioning. Am I repitching too much yeast? Duh, probably so. I am using the mr malty pitching calculator and have pitched a little more than that to make sure it ferments. If I did repitch too much, will the yeast ever settle out in these bottles or will I always get the yeast smell/taste?

Thanks in advance!

If you go overboard with pitching yeast, there will be little reproduction. This reproduction produces necessary esters for your beer (though too many esters are also bad). Beer will taste pretty lifeless with no esters.

While you have probably overpitched, I think the main problem is that you have rushed to bottling. If you rushed to bottle as soon as fermentation stopped, you bottled too soon. Leaving the beer in the fermenter another 4-7 days will allow the yeast to clean up any unwanted esters and also allow the yeast to settle. You apparently have too much yeast left in suspension. There will always be a little yeast in the bottom of bottle condition beers but it sounds like you may have an excessive amount.

Wayne

Good point. I have been bumping up my bottling. I used to wait a full 2 weeks for things to settle out (on my Ales). Since I started repitching, the fermentation starts sooner and finishes sooner so I have been bottling on day 10 or 11 (FG has been 1.010 every time). I will definitely be more patient in the future to make sure things settle out before bottling (or kegging).

Thanks for the observation and info!

If you've got the ability, cold crashing the beer in the carboy for a couple days prior to racking to your bottling bucket can help clear the beer before bottling. I did this before I started kegging and only had a thin deposit of yeast in the bottle. Not quite Sierra Nevada thin, but thin.