Bottling 100% Lacto Blueberry "Sour"

[ArkotRamathorn]

So after a long time coming here to the secret cabal of sour/wild brewing and absorbing the information here, I made my first sour/wild brew about 3 months ago.

Had a fairly simple batch with high wheat and flaked oats content, pitched a 3794 bag on top of 1.053 wort. It got down to 1.030ish (cant read those hydrometer lines the best), wasn't concerned too much with it stalling because I wanted sugars to still be present for the lacto to munch on (and I got some horse blankety farm that SWMBO described as "it smells like dirty tobacco like my grandpa, but not in a bad way"). I transfered this to secondary and threw probably a quarter gallon of yogurt starter on top (would've put more but not much room left in the fermenter). All of this was sitting on top of 5ish lbs of blueberries I picked last August.

So that brings us to today, I took a hydrometer reading after letting it sit covered in a black garbage bag and blankets for 3 months. Came out to about 1.002 or 1.001. No pellicle that I can show off, it had a little bit of the saison-y earthness still present and a soft yogurt-y sourness, unfortunately most of the blueberry flavor/aroma is gone.

So I have a question, does lacto have the same habit of fermenting forever after bottling potentially causing bottle bombs? Planning on putting these in some heavier 750ml bottles I saved from New Glarus Strawberry Rhubarb/Serendipity and giving a handful away as Christmas presents so I am hoping they dont explode at some random point in the far future. I wasn't thinking of bottling these till the VERY earliest October, if I'm a moron, say so and I'll wait till this time next year to bottle. Also if I transfered onto another 5lbs of blueberries would that help to infuse more of the blueberry aroma/flavor? I sort of expected this to happen just because it'd drop to such a low gravity it would chug through a lot of the sugars, and blueberries have a very mild flavor in the first place.

No delicious pellicle but when I get home I will post a picture of the beautiful clear purple color it got (affectionately the beer will be named Purple Drink when its bottled and labled).

 

[dantheman13]

Forgive me if I am overlooking something, but what kind of yeast/bugs did you pitch? You need to be more careful of Brettanomyces than the bacteria (although I am not totally sure what yogurt bacteria would do). 1.001 is pretty low though, so chances are you could probably bottle. To be safe though, you can leave it a month and take a gravity reading then to see if there is any change. If there is, let it keep going.

That said, 3 months is not a long time. These beers generally taste a lot better after at least a year (assuming you have Brett in there and not just Lactobacillus). Again, I am not sure how the yogurt bacteria will play into this, but the low gravity wouldn't have me too concerned about bottle bombs.

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

Forgive me if I am overlooking something, but what kind of yeast/bugs did you pitch? You need to be more careful of Brettanomyces than the bacteria (although I am not totally sure what yogurt bacteria would do). 1.001 is pretty low though, so chances are you could probably bottle. To be safe though, you can leave it a month and take a gravity reading then to see if there is any change. If there is, let it keep going.

That said, 3 months is not a long time. These beers generally taste a lot better after at least a year (assuming you have Brett in there and not just Lactobacillus). Again, I am not sure how the yogurt bacteria will play into this, but the low gravity wouldn't have me too concerned about bottle bombs.

Hopefully theres no brett in there, if there is, its entirely not on purpose. I'm going to take a stab that the drop down to 1.002ish wasnt all the lactobacillus' work but there's definitely a sourness there thats similar to yogurt.

In terms of the bacteria present it should only be L. Bulgaricus, S. Thermophilus, L. Acidophilus, Bifidus, L. Casei, as well as the sacc from the 3794 Belgian Saison from Wyeast. I had the blueberries frozen solid since probably a week after I picked them so deep freeze for well over 9 months. Any wild bacteria/yeast I guess could've survived but would be in extremely small populations, and the other bacteria that was in the culture probably didn't much enjoy the alcohol.