Gose and the yeast plug

[spearko520]

I've read in a number of spots about how the traditional shape of the gose bottle was to facilitate letting the krausen build into the neck and plug up the bottle. I am guessing that you could get some light effervescence from this, but can't imagine that you could build any real pressure (though maybe a very low level of CO2 was all they were looking for), so i have always felt that the "how the gose bottle got its shape" history might be a little inaccurate. however- i have plugged a few airlocks and swelled some bucket lids that seemed to have a little force behind them when they came unplugged and i have been drinking a lot of the bayerischer banhof lately and i have a nice pile of the bottles. I am thinking of not closing the swingtop and trying to make something using the bottle and the plug. Now, i'm not really sure what to expect- but planning it brought another question to light- how would one remove the plug prior to serving the beer? I don't think riddling and freezing would really be the answer, since there was a quick turnaround and the shape of the bottle does not not facilitate it, like a champagne bottle shape does. Does anyone have any info on this, or theories of their own they would care to espouse?

 

[smokinghole]

My guess is they only allowed the beer to partially ferment before bottling. Then the krausen would plug up the bottle. I would also wager a bet that there's bret along with lacto in the old cultures that were bottled in this manner. So once the plug is in place I would think some serious pressure and carbonation can be built up in the bottle that way. It's easy enough for you to try just bottle some off in the middle of fermentation and give it a shot.

Opening I think would be accomplished with a cork screw or ice pick. I would bet the plug remained in the bottle until it was drank.

Here's some more info if you haven't seen it already.

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/search/label/Gose

 

[spearko520]

that's what i'm planning to try, and you're probably 100 percent correct about the brett- it seems like many of the older styles (IE berliner wiess) also had some brett in there. It just seems surprising to me that krausen would congeal into a plug that could be removed with an apparatus, but i guess there is only one way to find out. I also agree that they probably left the bottles plugged- otherwise why go through all that trouble to create a specific bottle shape that really isn't very conducive to store (the ones i have are shaped very awkward)? Someone could have saved them all the trouble and invented caps. I am almost thinking that there is a part of the history that deals with the plug removal that we are missing...

 

[drchris83]

Oftentimes champgne bottles are not uncorked but rather "beheaded", i.e., you chop of the part of the bottleneck which contains the plug using a saber (one can still buy those sabers in the pricier silverware stores in downrown Vienna). Maybe the answer is somewhere along those lines? A long slim bottleneck would certainly invite such practices.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

Oftentimes champgne bottles are not uncorked but rather "beheaded", i.e., you chop of the part of the bottleneck which contains the plug using a saber (one can still buy those sabers in the pricier silverware stores in downrown Vienna). Maybe the answer is somewhere along those lines? A long slim bottleneck would certainly invite such practices.

Easily the classiest way to open any package in the world.

 

[spearko520]

that's actually how i open all my mail. Which is pretty much why no one sends me mexicans, anymore...

 

[drchris83]

that's actually how i open all my mail. Which is pretty much why no one sends me mexicans, anymore...

Not cool.

 

[spearko520]

sorry- i meant for my birthday.