i bottled a barleywine recently and it def picked up some funk in the barrel or somewhere along the way.
background:
the beer was brewed in early november. around mid december it was dumped into the 5 gal oak whiskey barrel from the group buy in the classified section (thanks again saccharomyces and infidel). it spent three weeks in the barrel; went in @ 1.018 and came out at 1.010. it went in secondary at 1.010 in early january and stayed there until mid march when i bottled it. no gravity drop at all, bottled with SG of 1.010. i didn't notice and funk then and the gravity stayed so steady i didn't think anything of it.
my question to you pro's...
is it possible the brett was dormant until the priming sugar was added? why would it suddenly develop the brett funk out of nowhere? i added extra yeast at bottling for the fear of a lengthy time for carbonation, but i opened a test bottle after only 2 weeks in bottle and it's overcarbonated. i was shooting for 3 volume CO2 (5 oz corn sugar in 5 gal beer) but it seems to have quite a bit more than that, prob from the brett. any ideas how the gravity can hold so steady and then proliferate when it didn't previously? what gives? it tastes great and i certainly don't mind a little funk, but fear bottle bombs could be in my near future. i guess the barrel went funky a little prematurely which explains why all my BIG beers are going in the barrel high (~1.030) and coming out lower than normal (~1.010).