I'm going to bottle condition two separate sours soon and am reading alot of different ways to do this. They are two fruited sour blondes - two gallons in one fermentor and three in another. They have been fermenting for 13 months. Should I use champagne yeast or should I use another yeast? Or, no additional yeast? Do I still need to add sugar? And, the big question, how much of each? I've read lots of different amounts/ratios.
How long did you secondary your sour beers? Yes, sugar is needed to start a secondary fermentation within the bottle (i.e., the bottle conditioning process). How much sugar you add depends on what carbonation you want (plus beer amount). There are online calculators which will permit you to select what you want. Cheers!
The advice in American Sour Beers by Mike Tonsmeire (@OldSock) is that you probably don't need to add yeast, but it is cheap insurance, speeds the process up, and won't do any harm. Champagne yeast is good because it has evolved to be acid- and alcohol-tolerant and to consume only simple sugars. Tonsmeire uses 2 grams of yeast per 5 gallons of beer. You do need to add some kind of priming sugar if you want carbonation (although Tonsmeire notes that sour beers are sometimes good flat). Standard table sugar works fine. You should calculate your priming sugar in the normal way, unless the beer has been barrel-aged, in which case it will have lost more CO2 than normal and you should assume that there is only 0.3 or 0.4 volumes of CO2 (vs. 0.5-0.8 in a normal beer). Overall Tonsmeire advises a relatively low degree of carbonation, around 2.1 to 2.3 volumes (and even lower for high alcohol beers). But that is a matter of taste. You should buy his book!
Thanks for the advice! That corresponds to "most" of what I've read. They've both been in primary for 13 months. Most publications say to add yeast on long-term aged beers, so I had planned on doing so. Champagne yeast seems to be what most recommend, but not all. I had planned on using Red Star, but have seen varying amounts listed. Mike even seems to use varying amounts on his site, so I was wondering if there was a general consensus. I'll just go with roughly one gram for each fermentor. I wasn't sure if there would be any sugars left after a year. Sounds like I need to add a bit. I'll use one of the various calculators to determine how much sugar to add depending on desired carb levels. Thanks for the reassurance. Getting excited to try them. Blackberry/blueberry in one and raspberries in the other.
Two things to take into consideration are: 1) Terminal acid shock, if you are reyeasting. Some reading from the MTF wiki here: http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Packaging#Acid_Shock_Starters 2) How highly carbonated do you want your beer? Again, some good reading from MTF: http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Packaging#Priming
