Bottling a sour

[garbs]

Maybe the "mold" clumps are actually bits of a pellicle that formed in the bottle, which would be entirely normal. Personally, I think that pasteurizing a sour beer is pretty lame.

[Cody]

I have no experience with sours. But this leads me to ask: what do you do with the pellicle...drink it or scoop it out?

[PhillyBrewer]

Well there are many very good commercial sours that are pasteurized. Again, my main goal for pasteurizing is for carbonation purposes. I've never drank a sour I've made (have 4 going now), but I can understand how allowing a sour to age in the bottle for years could be a very positive thing. I'm just concerned I'm going to spend 12-24 months making these sours and they'll be ruined because of messed up carbonation. If that was the case, I'd prefer to have a beer that was solid but wasn't going to develop any more than a beer that would continue to develop, but whose carbonation would be messed up.

[brewinhard]

Hey PhillyB-

I kegged my last 5 sour beers and cold conditioned them in the fridge after blending them to where I thought they would be best recieved for tasting purposes. Once I force carbed them to my liking I used my beergun to bottle them up. None of my bottles have formed a pellicle yet in them altough they have only been in the bottle for 3 or so mos. They taste great and actually have improved even in the bottle.

Your LHB guy who enjoys brewing sours was probably not seeing mold form but rather a pellicle at the air-liquid interface. This happens in all of the sour beers I have brewed and bottled NOT using the beergun. Just my 2cents.

[brewtoomuch]

Philly,

What are you getting ready to bottle. I'm getting ready to bottle / keg three different lambics and the only thing stopping me is the uncertainty of blending and bottling them. Like you said some of these beers are 3-4 years old and I dont want to screw it up.

[PhillyBrewer]

brewinhard,
Okie doke. Typical sours end pretty low (~1.006) and I can see your method being successful for those beers. I have a Belgian dark strong which I pitched Brett too because ferm stopped. I'll keg when it's around 1.027 which was the intended FG pre Brett. Will this beer, with such a high FG, be OK to keg in your standard manner?

brewtoomuch,
I don't have anything ready to keg just yet, but I have a wit which I pitched the dregs of two geuzes somewhat close and the BDS is close too. I have a Flanders red and a lambic going, but their kegging is in the future a bit.

[BarefootLion]

I'm in the same boat too, I have a brown with Brett that I have been waiting to bottle because I'm not sure how I am going to do it. So thanks for the info guys.

[brewinhard]

brewinhard,
Okie doke. Typical sours end pretty low (~1.006) and I can see your method being successful for those beers. I have a Belgian dark strong which I pitched Brett too because ferm stopped. I'll keg when it's around 1.027 which was the intended FG pre Brett. Will this beer, with such a high FG, be OK to keg in your standard manner?

brewtoomuch,
I don't have anything ready to keg just yet, but I have a wit which I pitched the dregs of two geuzes somewhat close and the BDS is close too. I have a Flanders red and a lambic going, but their kegging is in the future a bit.

No worries Philly! 1.027 does sound a bit high, but I would let the brett continue to work for another couple mos. then keg it. If you can get it down to mid to low 1.020's wouldn't that be ideal? Give it time and if you can let it go for a bit more you will be greatly rewarded.
If you simply can't wait any longer, then by all means keg it, and keep it in your fridge. This will greatly slow down the brett's advancement on the remaining sugars and if kept in the fridge long enough your beer will stabilize even when beergunned into bottles. You may see a tiny bit of a drop over the course of a year in the bottle but it will be neglible. BTW, I have a few different berliner weisse's with lacto and brett that I beer gunned to as close to 4 vol. as possible in the crappy homebrew store bottles that are only supposed to take 3 vol. and I have not had one pop EVER! Even sent them across the state for comps without breakage. So maybe that will ease your mind as to how much CO2 those bottles can handle.