• Welcome to the new forum! We upgraded our forum software with a host of new boards, capabilities and features. It is also more secure.
    Jump in and join the conversation! You can learn more about the upgrade and new features here.

Bottling Two Sours---Different Paths

bobo1898

Grandmaster Brewer
Master Brewer
Joined
Jul 26, 2012
Messages
223
Reaction score
2
Location
Chicago
I have two sours that are ready to be bottled. Both different stories. Need some advice.

WILD LAMBIC
This beer has been in a carboy for a year (June 2018). It's FG is 1.000. I'm going to bottle half of it this week (other half will go on fruit). I plan on bottling with champagne yeast and will house it in champagne and belgian bottles. Is there anything I need to be concerned about when using champagne yeast? Is the procedure generally the same?

SOUR KOLSCH
This beer wasn't intended to be a sour. Brewed in November 2018, and racked into a used barrel a week later to age. It sat there until February but went south to where it started to take on some vinegar characteristics. From what I've gathered, this is potentially due to oxygen exposure. The pH was 3.5 at that time, so I racked it out of the barrel and onto some wild cherries, with which it still resides (4 months total with cherries). I have no idea what bugs are inside it, but with it on the cherries, there isn't any visible signs of infection. I've been thinking about bottling it. Probably going to bottle condition it for another six months or more. Should I pitch yeast at bottling time? Or assume that whatever bugs in the beer will carbonate it with my added sugar? I may be low on heavy duty bottles so I'm hesitant to use standards.
 
Unless you live in Belgium, you didn't brew a Lambic, you brewed a Wild or Spontaneous beer. Champagne yeast will serve nearly identically to any other yeast. Make sure you have a proper corker and corks for champagne corks and Belgian corks. they are both different from wine corks and themselves.



yeast and bacteria on the "kolsch" will suffice.. Alternatively you could pasteurize or otherwise sterilize the beer and pitch yeast and sugar to have more exact control.

 
dtapke said:
Unless you live in Belgium, you didn't brew a Lambic, you brewed a Wild or Spontaneous beer.

This is correct. I do not live in Belgium. Thanks for the response. Looks like I'm in good shape to bottle forward. I take it for the half that goes on fruit--which will sit for another six months or so, I would want to bottle with less sugar when I get there?

Thanks for the advice on the "kolsch." I think I'll stick with the bacteria rather than pasteurize. I'll just pitch priming sugar in the bucket. Should I target a lower volume of co2 like 2.8 as opposed to 3 and up because of the fruit?
 
Assuming you didn't otherwise kill off any yeast etc, any sugars that the cherries added should be fermented, so bottle as you desire.

Lambics are technically still. So carbonation is mildly off style although ymmv depending on who you talk with.

Beers such as Krieks etc are bottled with fruit juice or a young lambic added before bottling to provide the sugar charge if carbonation is of your desire.

So, I can't be of much help, you should do whatever the beer moves you to do. bottle still, bottle with sugar, bottle with fresh(er) beer, bottle with juice. RAHAHB!
 
Back
Top