Bottle Conditioning Sour Beers - Force Ferment?

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wonderbread23

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Hey everyone. I have a couple sour beers that have been going for 1 year plus that I plan on bottle conditioning with fresh champagne yeast and corn sugar. Before I do this, I want to get a sanity check on the process I'm planning. Basically the idea is that I should be able to re-yeast a sample of the beer with champagne yeast, add corn sugar to it, and let it ferment out to completion on a stir plate. By comparing the before and after gravities, I should in theory be able to determine if the champagne yeast consumed only the added sugar, or if there were some other fermentables in there it could have eaten. Since corn sugar is 100% fermentable, the pre and post force fermentation gravities should be the same and I should be able to safely calculate an appropriate amount of sugar to bottle condition with. Does this sounds about reasonable?
 
By comparing the before and after gravities, I should in theory be able to determine if the champagne yeast consumed only the added sugar, or if there were some other fermentables in there it could have eaten. Since corn sugar is 100% fermentable, the pre and post force fermentation gravities should be the same and I should be able to safely calculate an appropriate amount of sugar to bottle condition with.

If I am understanding you properly, that's not correct. The post-fermentation gravity should be lower, since there will be additional alcohol, which has a density below that of water.
 
Why not just take a sample of the beer and pitch the yeast. If it can ferment sugars in there, it will, no need to get complicated with the corn sugar. Maybe I'm missing something, though (not sarcasm).
 
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