Adding bugs at bottling?

[kaz4121]

So I have a clean Belgian Strong Ale that I just added 1 can of Oregon Blueberry and Blackberry puree to. I've made it before and really like this beer - not extremely fruity, but enough to entertain the taste buds (I'm an IPA/sour kind of guy).

Anyway, I was thinking about pulling a dozen or so bottles at bottling and adding a few ml's of either my dregs collection or ECY20 that I have working on a true sour batch currently.

I tried searching for adding bugs to a clean beer at bottling but did not find much. Do you think it would develop some acidity/sour/funk if I added the bugs and then aged them for a year? Should I add priming sugar or let the bugs chew through the rest of the gravity (~1.011 right now)? Would I be better off with the dregs or small amount of my sour with ECY20? Or do you not think this is worth the effort?

Thanks

 

[metic]

I've done this, with good results, but only on very dry beers. If you add bugs to a beer at 1.011, there is a good chance that they will eventually take the beer down as low as 1.000; assuming that 2 gravity points = 1 volume of carbonation, that's 5 or 6 volumes. So if you're set on trying this with this particular beer, I'd say use champagne bottles and don't add any priming sugar.

You could also add the dregs to the beer now, let them take it down a few points, then bottle later. That's probably the best plan if you want to get some sourness out of them, because you'll need to leave enough sugars that over-carbonation would be a real risk when bottling. The other option would be to add just brett to a drier beer. Oldsock has some good posts about this on his blog. When I've done this, it's been with very dry beers, or beers >1.006 in champagne bottles, and it adds a pleasant funkiness.

(One possible caveat: if your beer is very alcoholic, as I'd expect with a Belgian Strong, there's a chance the bugs won't take it down as far, or will take longer to do so. But I still wouldn't be inclined to take the risk with a gravity that high. Others may disagree.)

 

[DSorenson]

Plus one. Bugs (as with different yeasts) might find more sugars to consume and turn into CO2. That would be a daring move.

 

[40watt]

I second what metic said. Add the bugs in the fermenter and bottle when it gets below 1.010. 1.008 might be the sweet spot. No priming sugar.

Be prepared to wait for it to finish.

 

[kaz4121]

Yeah part of me thought 1.011 was too high, but the issue with adding bugs to the fermenter is that I want to bottle the majority clean, and only stash away a dozen or so bottles to sour. I guess I could fill up two growlers when I bottle and add the bugs to that for a few months and then transfer when the gravity gets lower.

My rationale is that this would be one way to "test" how well this beer will sour due to the higher gravity as metic pointed our. I also don't want to overload my sour pipeline at this point. I will have 3 ready for early 2015 and thought a couple sixers of this would be reasonable.

So if i were to transfer some beer to a growler or two, should I let it sit in the growler for a year and bulk sour or could I let the bugs work down the FG a bit and then bottle as outlined above?

 

[Thorpe429]

So if i were to transfer some beer to a growler or two, should I let it sit in the growler for a year and bulk sour or could I let the bugs work down the FG a bit and then bottle as outlined above?

Either way would work there. It will develop in bulk or in the bottle, but if bottling, you just want to make sure you're not going to have bottle bombs. Even when using champagne bottles, it's no fun to have massive gushers even if the bottles hold.

 

[sweetcell]

if you don't want to dedicate a growler to this project, you could get a 1-gallon jug (or several). there are several brands of apple juice and apple cider that are sold in such jugs. 1 gallon = 9-10 bottles.

So if i were to transfer some beer to a growler or two, should I let it sit in the growler for a year and bulk sour or could I let the bugs work down the FG a bit and then bottle as outlined above?

you don't know how low the bugs will take your FG, so bottling any time before the gravity stabilizes is a risk. will the bugs add 1 volume (under-carbed) or 4 (over-carbed)? hopefully it will be something in between, but i'd be inclined to give the bugs a year to do their thing.

 

[Coff]

Rack to a 1 gallon jug and add your bugs, let it chill for a few months then take a gravity reading and bottle when stable. Adding the bugs to the bottle in a 1.011 beer is going to be tough to dial in the carbonation levels, as has been stated above regarding alcohol% and possible over carbonation. It takes years of experience with the same beers/bugs/conditions to dial that process in.

 

[thisisbeer]

Maybe just sit aside what you want to bottle with bugs and let it get down to ~1.008. I wouldn't think there would be any problem doing what your talking about at that gravity. You wouldn't want to bottle the beer from the same bucket as you wouldn't want priming sugar in the bug bottles. So you would have to bottle separately. You wont know until you try!

Jester King in Austin, TX does some similar things. I have an IPA clone of theres that adds brett at bottling. Which I think they do with most of there beers now. They add other bugs as well at bottling. But there beers tend to be bottled dry or ~1.004 or less. You can use priming sugar at that point.

 

[PLOVE]

Definitely be careful about making bottle bombs by adding bugs to clean beer with residual sugar (as others have pointed out).

Interestingly, a similar strategy is (or was) used by producer of gueze beer - the original champagne of beers. The brewers, or more likely blenders would carefully blend old lambics (very dry) with young lambics in heavy glass (think champagne bottles). Because the young lambics still had residual sugar the bugs would generate the carbonation in bottle. I can only imagine what happened when this didn't go as planned (BOOM). I guess that's why only a select few blenders had jobs and everyone else was looking for on.. . .