Ready to bottle most if not all & tasting notes from my first three sours

19 month old Brett Flanders:
fg: 1.011
est abv: 6.4
Jamil's recipe and I added dregs from Goose Island Sofie and Matilda for the Brett.
It finally developed a body to it. Slight oak tastes despite the 1/2 oz. of Pinot soaked cubes I added 10 months ago. Very dry finish. It has an initial bitterness that wanes off quickly.

13 month old Temptation Clone w/ JP dregs:
fg: 1.0094
est abv: 6.6
Smells like sherry. Initial tastes is pretty spot on to Temptation but there's an aftertaste, probably due to the JP, that gives it a little more punch.

14 month old black sour:
fg: 1.011
est abv 6.3
This was a blend of left over grain. A lot of debittered black and some chocolate malt (SRM +50). 6 months ago this was so sour it almost hurt. Since then it's mellowed out and has become the wife's favorite. A soured dessert beer of sorts.

These are all so different and all 13+ months old. I like where they are out so I am wanting to start bottling them.

My readings might be a little off as I took the OG with a hydrometer and I am converting today's readings from a refractometer and doing conversions.

Questions.

I would like to bottle but might not be able to get a reliable source for belgian/champgne bottles for these. Is it cool to put them in regular 12oz bottles?

Should I use some champagne yeast for any of these or, given the age, should they be able to carb some on their own?

I have three more random beers i want to sour as well now. Can I just bottle one batch, brew the next day and then rack onto the same cake? If so, do i need any more yeast or will whats on the trub take over?

I didn't know you could use a refractomer for FG. 22 oz bombers are my favorite. (cheap and can bottle with my existing equipment). Good beer is still good in any bottle Don't know about the yeast. You might try an experiment, using a carb drop and a 12 oz bottle and give it three weeks and see if it carbs. You've already waited 13+ months, a little longer can't hurt Check on the yeast manufacturer's web site about yeast washing. Washing/Re-use isn't recommended on strong beers and some sour varieties, as they don't retain the same profile after propagating.

If you need any help tasting, let me know These sound delicious!

after 13 months, i don't think there is much sugar left in there - so threat of bottle bombs is minimal. maybe warm up the beers a few degrees for a month to make sure they've gotten everything. then bottle away in regular bottles, maybe carbing slightly on the low side (stay under, say, 2.4).

i would add a little champagne yeast, otherwise the bugs might take a long time to carb. you want about 1 million cells/ml, which works out to about 20 billion cells for a 5 gallon batch. that's about a tenth of a 11gr packet of dry yeast... but go nuts and add a fifth of a packet.

yes, racking on to an old cake will sour the new beer. that would be a lot of cells, so it *seems* to me (no experience to back this up) that the souring would happen very quickly because of all the lactic bugs, and you wouldn't get as much brett character since little cell growth would be needed. folks with more experience should feel free to correct me (or, heaven forbid, back me up...). methinks you could use just a portion of the cake to get around these issues, if in fact i'm right.

tugbucket, are you sure about those FG readings? They seem a bit high for beers with brett/bugs that have aged for that long.

Wyrmwood said:

I didn't know you could use a refractomer for FG.

Click to expand...

you can, but you need to apply a correction factor to compensate for the presence of alcohol. you can't take a direct reading (i.e. what you see in the scope). i like this calculator: http://onebeer.net/refractometer.shtml

dcHokie said:

tugbucket, are you sure about those FG readings? They seem a bit high for beers with brett/bugs that have aged for that long.

Click to expand...

very good point, i didn't think of that. i'd expect them to be in the low single digits...

Thanks guys.

Went a different route to recheck my readings. Thsi time converting with this: http://www.brewersfriend.com/brix-converter/ then using: http://onebeer.net/refractometer.shtml

Flanders: 1.004
Black: 1.009
Temptation: 1.003

That sounds better.

Good thing is the house is just warming up on it's own right now and I have 10 gallons of other brews to get bottled before these. Have plenty of bombers. I'd like to do a split some small some big and want to wax a few big ones. Probably in the JP bottles I have saved. So hopefully these will start getting bottled early to mid June. Just in time to start brewing sour batches numbers 4,5 and 6 before it gets butt ass hot out.

And, just noticed dcHokie and sweetcell are neighbors. My brother lives in Rockville.