bottle conditioning failed - best plan to fix?

Made a sour beer. Let it run its course and is ready to bottle. I added about 6.5 oz corn sugar and some wine yeast to the bottling bucket and waited. Its been a few months now. I stacked the boxes with the bottles, corked, inside. At least one bottle at the bottom of the stack exploded inside the box. I haven't investigated that box yet. I've nabbed about 8 beers from the top box. The first at 6 weeks was uncarbonated, so I recorked it and let it sit another 6 weeks. It was spot on.

The next night I cracked another. It was nearly perfect in terms of carbonation.

After those two, the remaining bottles I've tried have been nearly or entirely flat. I'm mixed in a bit of club soda, but this has not been gratifying.

I'm at the point where I need to try and rescue them. I think I'd like to try transferring them to a keg to force carb. Alternately, I could add on of those capsulized sugar pellets from NB (the capsules I assume will prevent the gushing when trying to add crystallized drops or plain sugar).
Adding to keg risks oxidization. This to me isn't as big of a problem in a sour beer (oxidization), but I can't think of many ways to minimize this.

Any suggestions?

RH

What cultures are present? Too much oxygen with brett can result in really bad things (e.g. acetic acid, ethyl acetate). So I'd be wary of oxidation even though it's a sour.

Is it possible you didn't mix the priming sugar and yeast very well in your bottling bucket? The fact that you had a bottle bomb along with uncarb'd bottles is suspect to me. If you have't already done so, try inverting the bottles once per day for a couple weeks. If there is sugar there, this helps keep the yeast in suspension which can help getting it to carb, at least IME. Might want to wear leather gloves and safety glasses when you do this (since you've had one bottle bomb). Do you know your pre-bottling FG? If so, check the gravity in one of the uncarb'd bottles and you should see a difference assuming the priming sugar was mixed well. This will help determine whether the problem is absence of priming sugar or stalled yeast.

If your pH is really low, the yeast might be experiencing acid shock. Here's a recent write-up on the subject with info on how to overcome it that might help, http://phys.org/news/2016-03-biochemist-solution-acid-craft-brewers.html.

TrickyDick said:

Alternately, I could add on of those capsulized sugar pellets from NB (the capsules I assume will prevent the gushing when trying to add crystallized drops or plain sugar).

RH

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I can't tell you what's happening inside the bottles (my only thoughts there are either poor mixing of the corn sugar or failing to rehydrate and mix in the champagne yeast).

However, I am confused about the above statement. You can add sugar or sugar cubes without causing gushers. One Domino cube = 1/2 tsp = just about perfect amount for average carbonation for 12 oz bottle.

microbusbrewery said:

What cultures are present? Too much oxygen with brett can result in really bad things (e.g. acetic acid, ethyl acetate). So I'd be wary of oxidation even though it's a sour.

Is it possible you didn't mix the priming sugar and yeast very well in your bottling bucket? The fact that you had a bottle bomb along with uncarb'd bottles is suspect to me. If you have't already done so, try inverting the bottles once per day for a couple weeks. If there is sugar there, this helps keep the yeast in suspension which can help getting it to carb, at least IME. Might want to wear leather gloves and safety glasses when you do this (since you've had one bottle bomb). Do you know your pre-bottling FG? If so, check the gravity in one of the uncarb'd bottles and you should see a difference assuming the priming sugar was mixed well. This will help determine whether the problem is absence of priming sugar or stalled yeast.

If your pH is really low, the yeast might be experiencing acid shock. Here's a recent write-up on the subject with info on how to overcome it that might help, http://phys.org/news/2016-03-biochemist-solution-acid-craft-brewers.html.

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Excellent advice! I think I will try this. Unfortunately I did NOT check the gravity when I bottled, though I do have a gravity reading after over a year after I brewed, so I can't imagine it changed much. pH readings then too. I wrote then down in my brew log which is in my basement (need to go outside to get into the basement otherwise I'd tell you). I believe OG was around 1.008 and pH under 4 someplace. Yes there is Brett in it too. Roeselare blend.

I will measure the SG and see what I get on my next bottle open. I have 39 bottles out of 48 left (375ml), minus the broken one..

TD

Read that article about terminal shock inhibiting yeast metabolism.

Said to rehydrate dry bottling yeast in a blend of YPD (https://www.thermofisher.com/order/catalog/product/A1374501)
Along with some of beer you are planning to add it to.

I didn't see any information on what the ratios are for this preparatory step prior to bottling would be. At this point I don't see how this will help me, though perhaps...

I could uncork a few bottles, test the SG to determine if there was adequate mixing of the sugar. I filled the bottling bucket with the boiled sugar solution and then racked the beer into the bucket so it swirled. I added dry wine yeast (rock pile) and stirred.

when opening the bottles, I'll be exposing them to oxygen of course. No way around that. I could take some of the beer and use it to prepare additional yeast with some of that YPD stuff and then add a few drops to each bottle and recork.

Or I could try to find a small stopper double drilled and fashion a co2 driven bottle evacuator draining to a co2 purged keg through the beer out post, and a spunding valve fitted to the gas inlet.

That YPD is $35 plus S&H. 1 L
I'll bet I could get a double drilled stopper and tubing for less.

TD.

Leaking corks perhaps.

So you added the dry wine yeast without rehydrating? That could be your problem...if it did not dissolve fully, it could have gotten in some bottles and not others. I would try again with the yeast, rehydrating and adding a small amount to each bottle.

Gavin C said:

Leaking corks perhaps.

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You know. I've always suspected that. I bought some wax but got too busy to seal the bottles with the wax after corking. Seems that I frequently have issues with corked bottles lacking carbonation....

No more corks!

TD

Aristotelian said:

So you added the dry wine yeast without rehydrating? That could be your problem...if it did not dissolve fully, it could have gotten in some bottles and not others. I would try again with the yeast, rehydrating and adding a small amount to each bottle.

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To be honest, I don't recall. Probably did not. Note that the beer has its own yeast too, thought I brewed it November 2013, and bottled it late February 2016...
I usually do rehydrate yeast, but is possible I didn't.
Good idea, and a reminder that I should be certain to rehydrate in the future.

TD

OK.

Here is my plan...

I WAS able to find two hole No 2 stoppers made of rubber. Since it won't contact the beer, I don't mind about the rubber construction. 5mm holes. It turns out amazon has an assorted bag of rubber two hole stoppers with two No 2 in the bag along with many others I'll probably never find a use for. They also sell flint glass tubing 5mm diameter and tubing cutter (works best to wrap the tubing with tape before cutting, then file the edges on a diamond sharpening stone. A 10ft length of 3/16 ID Silicone tubing (which is super close to 5mm, actually a wee smaller which is better) also on Amazon, and it seems I should be able to connect glass tubing to the silicone tubing and then to the CO2 cylinder and then to the keg beer out post with a spunding valve on the gas in post. Purge sanitized keg and tubing apparatus and I'm set to use CO2 pressure to "rack" the beer from the bottles! I made two sizes of these apparatus, one for the small size bottle, and one for the larger size, but I suppose that you could probably use only one and adjust the depth of the glass tubing (dip tube) in the stopper as necessary.

Tomorrow I will test it out.

TD

Well today I finally did it. What a resounding success! I connected the short tube to CO2 and the long dip tube to beer out post of a co2 purged keg.
Was able to easily reverse fill the bottles back into the keg. No spunding valve is needed, just use the PRV to intermittently release the pressure.

I did NOT fill any kegs totally full. That could be problematic due to need to overcome hydrostatic pressure.

At any rate, I see this as a viable means to rectify failed bottle conditioning sours. THe components are relatively cheap compared to the time invested in brewing and fermenting sours in particular!

PM me if anyone wants more specifics, but in a nutshell what I suggested previously in this thread worked perfectly...

TD