Increase CO2 for bottle conditioned Tripel.

[smbenn]

Afternoon All.

Ongoing Tripel saga ... managed to achieve 73% attenuation on my 8.7% ABV Tripel. All good and nice taste. But was a bit too cautious when I came to priming - only 0.25tsp sugar per 330ml bottle. My calcs told me I should be heading for at least 0.5tsp per bottle but I was too scared of bottle bombs.

Sooooo ... current position is that I have 50 bottles of very gently carbonated nice-tasting Tripel (sort of ale levels of carbonation). Can I just decap them all and reprime? Or use something like Fermentis F2? Will all the CO2 disappear as soon as I decap or can I just add another 0.25-0.5tsp?

Thoughts please.

[och29]

I've almost exclusively kegged but from reading I think I can offer my 2 cents. If you open the bottle you will lose a bit of CO2. The gas that collects in the head space is dependant on the volume of CO2 dissolved in the beer. Since the head space is small in comparison to the beer you won't lose much in the way of carbonation. If you're worried about bottle bombs then I'd definitely ignore the loss.
Rather than adding sugar directly what I tend to do is make up a sugar solution and use a small syringe. It should give you much finer control over the sugar added and is probably easier.

As for the yeast, I've managed to culture yeast from commercial bottles so it should be fine to recarb. However it might take longer than you're willing to wait. If you're going to make up a sugar solution then you could always cool it and add some fresh yeast. That way you don't have to fuss over adding the right amount to each bottle.

[smbenn]

Thanks Och. Have bought F2 so will decap, make up a solution and reprime. Cheers.