Packaging Sour Beers

[bhaas]

I have a Flanders Red ale that is about 11 months old and I am trying to plan ahead. What is the best way to package this beer? Ultimately I want this beer in bottles. Is it better to bottle condition this beer or keg/force carbonate and use a beer gun to bottle? Just looking for some advice from experienced brewers. Thanks.

[brewinhard]

I have a Flanders Red ale that is about 11 months old and I am trying to plan ahead. What is the best way to package this beer? Ultimately I want this beer in bottles. Is it better to bottle condition this beer or keg/force carbonate and use a beer gun to bottle? Just looking for some advice from experienced brewers. Thanks.

Depends if you are willing to dedicate beergun parts/tubing, and kegs to sour brewing. I have 2 setups for my beergun - 1 for sour and 1 setup for normal beers. I think your best bet would be to bulk age in a secondary carboy, then when you feel that the beer is ready to package, bottle it up.

You might want to consider adding some fresh rehydrated yeast to ensure a timely, proper bottle conditioning as the bugs may be a bit tired at this point. You could either add saccharomyces or a fresh pack of brettanomyces to help bottle condition. After waiting all that time you dont want to end up with an uncarbonated beer.

[bhaas]

I am comfortable adding a second set up for a beergun. I have enjoyed making sour beers using just lacto and see myself brewing a lot more sours now using the vast array of bacterias and Brett. I just want to ensure my year of waiting isn't wasted by screwing up my packaging (looking for best results).

If i go the bottle conditioning route. Is it just like any other bottling day? Does the fresh yeast i choose matter that much? From what I understand the new yeast won't add to the flavor profile. With that in mind I am thinking US-05.

[Ironman]

I think your bottling yeast will have to be pretty bad ass stuff depending on the alcohol level.

[spiderwrangler]

Would the 'bugs' get you carbonation on their own without adding more yeast?

[bhaas]

I was working off of what brewinhard recommended, since the beer will be year old by the time i bottle it adding some fresh yeast just for insurance of proper bottle conditioning.

[maxwell]

You will also need to add an unusually large amount of priming sugar at bottling time. You can search around for a number on the interwebs, but something like 6 oz instead of 4 may be required. This is because after sitting at room temp for so long after fermentation the beer loses dissolved CO2. Having bottled and kegged sours, I might lean towards filling from the keg just because you have so much more control over carbonation. Nothing sucks more than spending a year or more to make a sour beer and then having the carbonation wrong.

[brewinhard]

Would the 'bugs' get you carbonation on their own without adding more yeast?

The bugs will eventually get you carbonated but it could take awhile (up to a couple mos). All the while your beer is mixing with the oxygen in the bottle getting oxidized.

Any dry yeast will work well, although I prefer Lalvin EC-1118 dry champagne yeast. It costs only $1, comes in 5 gram sachets (more than enough for bottling a 5 gallon batch), is alcohol, and low pH tolerant. All of this equals to a perfect yeast for bottle condittioning a sour beer.