First funky brew at 1.000 FG - when to bottle?

[nbbyrd]

Hey folks, I decided to play mad scientist and give my first funky brew experiment a go with the third runnings of an IPA I was brewing at the time.

I collected around 2 gallons of wort, boiled for 15 minutes and added about a half-ounce mix of Citra/Mosaic at flameout, cooled and pitched the dregs from 3 bottles of Jester King (Rare Corals, RU55, and Ol Oi). Ended up with a little less than 2 gallons at 1.035 and only pitched the JK dregs. The airlock had strong activity after a few days.

Now a month later I've taken the first sample to check the progress and it is down to around 1.000-1.001, looks cloudy with a light white film on top, smells and tastes slightly tart with some pleasant barnyard citrus funk. Not a lot of crazy sour or funk but really pleasant and I'm pleased with how it has turned out so far. I guess since Jester King's culture is a blend of native yeasts and bacteria it was able to ferment out a low OG fairly quickly on dregs alone?

So now for my question -- I anticipate that it will develop further into a more complex beer with time, but being around 1.000ish should I plan to bottle it sooner rather than later? And if so, how would y'all recommend priming it? Is there benefit to letting it age in bulk rather than bottles? Any and all advice is appreciated. Cheers!

 

[xpops]

i would say you'll always get a more "level" aging in bulk. You also tend to develop more "sour" and "funk" on reuse of yeast cake.
I'd say if it's down to 1.000 (that's pretty quick in 1 month), then you're at least not at risk of bottle bombs. if you're happy with the taste, bottle it up and reuse yeast cake for the next batch!

i have 2 sours on the go, and i intend to use some generic wine yeast to hopefully bottle condition them. i've read alot that this bulk aging and the bugs will eventually kill off the sach, but i'm sure there are some others on here that could share some experience of bottle conditioning sours withOUT pitching fresh yeast?

 

[NickL]

I would recommend waiting another month and seeing if you go down at all. Once you are sure it's stable then prime the same way you would with a clean beer.

It only takes 2 points to fully carbonate a beer. So if you prime now, thinking it's stable, when it actually wants to drop to 0.998 then you've gone over your target.

I agree with xpops. It's probably not enough to blow the bottle. Just depends on how accurate you want to get.

 

[nbbyrd]

Thanks for the responses! I'll let it go another month to see where it goes and go from there. Pretty excited about this one.

 

[oli-aus]

I'm pretty sure it's 4 points actually. Happy to be corrected if you have a source though?
.000 is completely ok to bottle, unless you usually carbonate to really high levels.
Maybe the French saison yeast was still alive and kicking in the jester king cultures you used as that strain has huge attenuation very quickly.

 

[NickL]

I'm pretty sure it's 4 points actually. Happy to be corrected if you have a source though?

I double checked this. It actually gives a range between 2 and 4 points haha.
(American Sour Beers pg 273 in case anyone is curious)

 

[sven945]

1.000 isn't necessarily fully fermented, as alcohol has a gravity lower than that, so high ABV, very dry beers could theoretically have a final gravity lower than 1.000. Definitely don't assume reaching that point means it's done any more than it being any other low figure (though there's a good chance it is done). I'd leave it for another month and check again.

 

[nbbyrd]

Just a quick follow up on this beer:
Brewed on 6/9, OG of 1.035
Bottled on 8/31, FG of 1.000

I bottled a few 22 oz bombers with 2 carbonation drops each and let it sit peacefully until today. Wow, this has gone above and beyond my expectations. Dry and bubbly with a great refreshing tartness and the small amount of Citra and Mosaic really pop. A real treat. Looking forward to trying this again and keeping the culture going. Thanks again to everyone who posted. Cheers y’all!
View attachment IMG_5407.jpg

 

[radwizard]

Looks great! Nice Work. How long did you carbonate it? Did you end up re pitching on the yeast cake?

 

[nbbyrd]

Looks great! Nice Work. How long did you carbonate it? Did you end up re pitching on the yeast cake?

It’s been bottle conditioning for right at 2 months now. I didn’t have any other brews in the pipeline to repitch onto the cake but I saved it all with some of the residual beer in a growler to keep feeding it starter wort until my next brew day.