When is secondary with fruit safe to bottle?

[karakedi]

I have been brewing a Cherry Stout since December, letting it sit in primary for a month. Its FG was 1.13.

I decided to forgo the cherry extract and use real cherries. I blended up 48 oz. of sour cherries in light syrup, and 48 oz. of frozen dark sweet cherries and added to secondary. I then racked the beer. I checked a few days later
1-8-13 add cherries to secondary, rack beer on top
1-10-13 SG = 1.018
1-13-13 SG = 1.010
1-28-13 SG = 1.010

After three weeks with the cherries, I racked the beer into a tertiary. I lost about half a gallon of liquid as it was completely full of cherry pieces. It has been in the tertiary now for week. The SG has remained constant at 1.010 except for today when it read at 1.009.

Like the secondary, there is a layer of sediment roughly an inch thick. It looks like both yeast and some smaller cherry chunks/fibers.

Is it safe to bottle at this point? I want to avoid bottle bombs and do not mind waiting a little longer. If the sediment is mostly dormant yeast and cherry fibers, then a small amount of fermentation should still be going on, but at a very slow rate since all of the easily digested sugars are long gone and the yeast are still eating the chunks. Am I correct in thinking this?

Thanks for your help

 

[buzbey]

I think your fine after three weeks your yeast has more than likely eatin all the ferment able sugars. And if not there won't be enough to cause bottle bombs.

 

[Marc77]

I have a question about your process too. Are you planning on using anything to try and get any and all pieces of cherry out of the beer? I'm thinking about doing something similar. But I worry about taking a good pull on the beer and getting cherry pieces.

 

[buzbey]

I have heard of using gelatin additions to settle the fruit out. I just bottled a raspberry dunkel.. when I use fruit again I will definitely do something to settle it out. It clogged my bottling cain 4 times and I ruined the last 6 pack because of fruit pieces

 

[Revvy]

When there hasn't been a change of gravity over a three day period, just like how you tell when any beer is finshed. Think a couple weeks to ferment it out, then take a grav reading....then 2 days later take another. If they numbers are the same then it's done.

 

[MarioM]

I have heard of using gelatin additions to settle the fruit out. I just bottled a raspberry dunkel.. when I use fruit again I will definitely do something to settle it out. It clogged my bottling cain 4 times and I ruined the last 6 pack because of fruit pieces

I just bottled a saison that I added fruit in secondary and also accidentally got some fruit in a few bottles. Why were your bottles ruined? What should I expect from the bottles that have some fruit chunks in them? I bottled with Fantome dregs so I would assume what ever bugs are in the dregs to further chew on the fruit or just drop out but why would the beer be ruined?.