Time to Bottle!

Hey folks,

I made my first 5 gallon lambic (peach) about a year and a half ago. It's now been in it's fourth fermentor for eight months. I am thinking about bottling it within the next week.

I know that lambics are often highly carbed. With all the time invested into this, I do not want to lose a drop to over-carb or bottle grenades, so I'm worried about pushing it.

Can anyone give me advice on the best way to go about bottle carbing this beast?

First, actual lambic beer is pretty much flat, gueuze is highly carbonated and fruit lambics are pretty even. If you want high carbonation in your beer, use heavy capible bottles(champagne, Brooklyn 750's, cantillon or drie bottles) or corkable bottles. There is also the new "belgian" bottles, the Jolly Pumpkin ones, from northern brewer. Keep your priming solution with in a reasonable level with the gravity of your beer.

I usually go for 3 volumes, and add some fresh yeast. I use standard bottles and have not had a problem yet.

Calder,

Standard 12 oz beer bottles with caps?

If I go for 3.0 volumes of CO2 and fill up standard bottles 3/4 the way will that allow enough space that the bottles don't break?

Just concerned. I've made about 30 batches of beer in the past three years and only had one issue. But that issue was on a brew I was aging for 6 months. Even though I followed all the steps to get a 2.3 co2 volume, I lost half of it to explosions. Dangerous and heartbreaking

ignatiusvienna said:

If I go for 3.0 volumes of CO2 and fill up standard bottles 3/4 the way will that allow enough space that the bottles don't break?

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don't think that will work, and that's a lot of air to trap inside the bottle. oxidation of the beer is one of many things that would concern me. if you're nervous about 3.0, go for 2.8 instead and fill normally.

ignatiusvienna said:

Just concerned. I've made about 30 batches of beer in the past three years and only had one issue. But that issue was on a brew I was aging for 6 months. Even though I followed all the steps to get a 2.3 co2 volume, I lost half of it to explosions. Dangerous and heartbreaking

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if you primed correctly for 2.3 vols and they exploded, the problem wasn't with the priming or the bottles. chances are you got an infection and something - brett, wild yeast, a bacteria - continue fermenting your beer, munched the long-chain sugars that your brewer's yeast left behind, and increased pressure until the bottles blew. of the bottles that didn't explode, how many were gushers?

sweetcell said:

don't think that will work, and that's a lot of air to trap inside the bottle. oxidation of the beer is one of many things that would concern me. if you're nervous about 3.0, go for 2.8 instead and fill normally.



if you primed correctly for 2.3 vols and they exploded, the problem wasn't with the priming or the bottles. chances are you got an infection and something - brett, wild yeast, a bacteria - continue fermenting your beer, munched the long-chain sugars that your brewer's yeast left behind, and increased pressure until the bottles blew. of the bottles that didn't explode, how many were gushers?

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Thank you. Very nervous!


Of that explosive batch, it was an Fest beer I made. I used all my normal sanitizing methods (perhaps I messed up! ). After six weeks in the primary and secondary fermenters, I separated them into 20oz and 12oz bottles, used enough dextrose for 2.3 vol and cellared for 6 months.

After three months, half of the 20oz exploded sending glass everywhere. I almost junked the rest, but opened a few. Of the remaining 20oz and 12oz, about a 1/3 were decently carbed, a third were over carbed and the remaining were gushers. Even still, the beer was drinkable and tasted close to what I wanted it to...just too foamy.

I'm at a loss with that batch...and certainly do not want to repeat the experience!!!!! I've never had an issue since, but you can never be too careful with calculations or sanitizing...and I must have made a mistake with one of those.

sweetcell said:

chances are you got an infection and something - brett, wild yeast, a bacteria - continue fermenting your beer, munched the long-chain sugars that your brewer's yeast left behind, and increased pressure until the bottles blew.

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Side note with that, in this lambic there's a ton of the Brett/wild yeast. Will that effect the bottling?

ignatiusvienna said:

After three months, half of the 20oz exploded sending glass everywhere. I almost junked the rest, but opened a few. Of the remaining 20oz and 12oz, about a 1/3 were decently carbed, a third were over carbed and the remaining were gushers. Even still, the beer was drinkable and tasted close to what I wanted it to...just too foamy.

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the uneven (over) carbonation makes me wonder if maybe the bottles weren't sufficiently sanitized.

ignatiusvienna said:

Side note with that, in this lambic there's a ton of the Brett/wild yeast. Will that effect the bottling?

Click to expand...

nothing to worry about, because you've been aging it for a year and a half. the bugs have had more than enough time to much through any residual sugars. there's nothing left for them at this point to ferment. prime away with full confidence. use a calculator like http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator/. these calculators assume a higher level of residual CO2 than what is currently in your 18-month old beer, so if you calculate for 3.0 vols you'll end up with a bit less. there's your safety cushion!

I'll have to be more mindful about the bottles I guess!

Thank you!

Sweetcell is giving you some very good advice. 2.3 volumes is not a problem for standard bottles. Something else was going on; beer not finished, or an infection.

ignatiusvienna said:

Calder,

Standard 12 oz beer bottles with caps?

Click to expand...

Standard bottles. As sweetcell noted, a sour after long aging will have less CO2 than in a standard beer, so priming to 3 volumes will actually give you less.

Some will have issues with this, but I have no problems bottling standard beers to 3 volumes if I think it is appropriate.

ignatiusvienna said:

If I go for 3.0 volumes of CO2 and fill up standard bottles 3/4 the way will that allow enough space that the bottles don't break?

Just concerned. I've made about 30 batches of beer in the past three years and only had one issue. But that issue was on a brew I was aging for 6 months. Even though I followed all the steps to get a 2.3 co2 volume, I lost half of it to explosions. Dangerous and heartbreaking

Click to expand...

Actually the larger air volume you leave in the bottle will make it more dangerous in the event you did over carbonate. If you do get a bottle bomb, the glass shards will travel further if there is a larger volume of air. Think about it; if you pressurize a liquid, the volume doesn't really change, so when it gets back to low pressure it doesn't expand. Actually a liquid doesn't change volume, but the CO2 in it will. If you pressurize a gas, you can compress a volume very small (think of squeezing a balloon). Once a compressed volume of air expands to a lower pressure the volume increases considerably. The bigger the airspace, the worse the consequences if a bottle does explode.

Thanks so much.

I bottled it and opened one a few days ago (roughly two weeks in the bottle).

No noticeable carbonation....hope it's just taking some time.

ignatiusvienna said:

Thanks so much.

I bottled it and opened one a few days ago (roughly two weeks in the bottle).

No noticeable carbonation....hope it's just taking some time.

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did you add any new yeast at bottling?

if you didn't, then it'll take the brett a little while to carb your beer - longer than brewers or wine yeast. you've waited over a year for this beer to ferment, waiting another few weeks should be easy

sweetcell said:

did you add any new yeast at bottling?

if you didn't, then it'll take the brett a little while to carb your beer - longer than brewers or wine yeast. you've waited over a year for this beer to ferment, waiting another few weeks should be easy

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I did not add any other yeast.

Didn't know it took longer for the brett to carb...a relief to know. I'll stop wasting it and just check it in another month!

Thanks so much!!!