Opening your first bottle

[joshrosborne]

I have bottles five Brett or sour beers so far and, as would make sense, I've found that these get remarkably better with time. I'm not sure what happens after bottling, but those I've opened at around a month after bottling to check carbonation have tasted pretty bad. Most of the beers have a weird cereal flavor, almost like cheerios, in new bottles. I re-yeast with champagne/wine yeast, so I'm not sure if that would be why.

Do most of you wait a certain amount of time to open beers brewed with Brett or bacteria? I moved back in December and bottled a sour brown and a Brett Belgian strong golden before we headed out and am going to try to hold off on opening them until May (which would put them at about six months)

In bottles, in order of age, I have: a mango sour (just over a year old, is tasting really good), a sour with white wine grapes added (just over 6 months bottled, still could use more time for complexity), a Brett L&B porter (about 4 months bottled, almost overwhelmingly funky), the aforementioned Brett Belgian and sour brown (both about three months old, haven't opened yet). All of these bottles are in storage, so I haven't touched any of them since December.

 

[TimT]

The cereal thing goes away with time. I find sometimes quite fast and sometimes it takes ~3-4 months. A fellow in this thread below has nailed down what the cereal thing is.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/diacetyl-variety-sours-400869/

 

[BryanThompson]

I have a bunch of the Korbel 187ml bottles. That way I can make a smaller impact testing to see when it is ready to drink. Although they do break at the top after about ten fillings to 3-5 volumes.

 

[joshrosborne]

I have a bunch of the Korbel 187ml bottles. That way I can make a smaller impact testing to see when it is ready to drink. Although they do break at the top after about ten fillings to 3-5 volumes.

That is a fantastic idea. I assume you're using corks?

 

[blizzard]

That is a fantastic idea. I assume you're using corks?

I do this, but have found a brand that accepts caps. Can't think of the name off the top of my head.

 

[BryanThompson]

You can do either. On my last berliner one bottle had a pellicle that filled the headspace. It was the one that had cracked around the top.