Post bottle first sour

So I had a quick question...

I recently bottled my first sour which turned out pretty good. I bottled last sunday and when I bottled I left the spent yeast and oak chips in the carboy and put a airlock on it. My question is... Can I save the oak chips for a future batch? Can I rack right on top or has it been sitting too long? What do I do with the chips if I save them?

How long was it aging before you bottled?

The problem at the moment is that it is exposed to the oxygen in the head space, as a result acetobacter is rapidly multiplying. If I were you I’d get it into a smaller container and refrigerate until you use it. You can dry the oak on a rack and then bag it up for later use, this has given me good, but not great results (sometimes I’ll just toss oak directly into another sour when I bottle a beer).

I repitch primary sour yeast cakes pretty regularly. For secondary yeast cakes I sometimes will pitch about a cup of slurry along with a fresh pitch of healthy Saccharomyces and additional bugs.

Hope that helps, good luck.

cfonnes said:

How long was it aging before you bottled?

Click to expand...

14 months

I'll probably just go ahead and dry the chips out and toss them in another. Switching my equipment right now to all grain so probably won't brew another batch for a month or.