I have been brewing for a little over 2 years. I mostly use extract kits from NB and the beer is always good. About 8 months ago I brewed a batch of Scottish Wee Heavy. The Beer tasted great but was flat. I bottle condition using the priming sugar that comes with the kit. I had a batch of Caribou Slobber conditioning right next the the Wee Heavy and it carbonated fine.
Someone told me higher gravity beers may need to have yeast added to them before bottling in order to get good carbonation. The Wee Heavy was 1.083 original gravity. I am asking for advice because I am just about ready to bottle a batch of Denny’s Wry Smile Rye IPA. The gravity on this beer is 1.08 and I don’t want it to come out flat.
Unless you’ve done a long secondary off the yeast cake, even big beers will typically carb up fine. The yeast are stressed, so it may take a lot longer than usual to carb up, but I’ve had beers up to 1.110 / 11% ABV carb up just fine with no extra yeast added at bottling time. Just make sure to keep them at room temp until they get to the carbonation level you would like.
Still, if you would like an extra insurance policy, you could add a small amount of dry yeast at bottling time with no harm. You shouldn’t need more than 1/4-1/3 of a pack of something like US-05.
Safale-04 is a great yeast for bottling. Preferred because it drops out of suspension really well (flocculates) and makes a nice compact layer at the bottom of the bottle
