Carbing and Bottling a Sour

[ted464]

I have a few questions... Last April (2014) I made my first sour, a Sour Brown which has been sitting in the carboy for 11 months now. I usually keg, but have been given several swing top bottles, which I plan on using for the sour. I have a five gallon batch... should I just add champaign yeast with sugar/boiled/cooled water and bottle? Will it condition that way? Is there a carb level I should aim for? The yeast was the Roeselare Blend.

 

[NTexBrewer]

Last year I brewed a Russian River Temptation Clone. I wanted to carbonate to 3 volumes. From doing online searches, I found to assume the beer to have 0.4 volumes of CO2 with such a long time sitting. I then used the formula 4 grams of cane sugar per liter of beer to get 1 volume of CO2. I needed 2.6 volumes and had 20.8 Liters of beer so I used 216 grams of cane sugar. I also used a little over 2 grams of EC-1118 Champagne Yeast rehydrated at bottling.

Note that the formula is for Cane sugar and the units are Liters for volume and Grams for mass.

To simplify the formula would be:

((Vol. CO2 Wanted) - 0.4) * 4 * (Volume of Beer in Liters) = Grams of Sugar

I'm not sure what carbonation level is typical for a Sour Brown

 

[ted464]

Thanks... I was going to aim for about 2.5, so I'll use your formula and the champaign yeast, thanks again.

 

[fermentology]

I've done it multiple ways. I've added champagne yeast (which is the fastest way to carbonate), I've added yeast from a new fermenting sour, and I've added no fresh yeast. All times I add sugar targeting around 3 volumes of CO2. They've all carbonated eventually, some just take longer the others. Just make sure that you beer is at a stable terminal gravity.