Bottling a Wild Saison

Over the weekend, I bottled for the first time (I've been brewing since January 2011). At the time I was thinking that I still had enough yeast in suspension to make it work, but I'm hoping for a bit of confirmation.

The beer was based on the clone of McKenzie Saison Vautour from the BYO saison issue last year. My OG was 1.060. Final gravity was around 1.002. It originally fermented for about 2 weeks with WLP Saison II. After that, I added the Belgian Lambic Blend from Wyeast. In total, it was sitting for almost exactly 5 months. At this point, the gravity hadn't changed in months, and there was also what looked like a bit of a Brett pellicle (judging by Brett starters that I've done).

My bottling method was that I racked the beer into a purged keg, added the sugar, filled the head space with CO2, and then rolled it around a bit to ensure the sugar went around. Then I used a Beer Gun to fill champagne-style 750s.

Given the gravity, time spent in the carboy, and likely pellicle, is there going to be enough yeast around to carbonate the beer? I initially thought the pellicle would be enough (I sucked up a good portion of it with my auto-siphon), but now I'm questioning myself.

Worst case scenario, I figure I'll have to uncap, use a syringe to inject some Brett, purge the neck space with CO2, and recap. I hope it doesn't come to that though.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

 

Thanks for the reply. In the interim, I took a look at the bottles and it appears that there is some sediment forming at the bottom of the bottles, so something was definitely in there. I assume that means at least a bit of the yeast got in.

I plan to wait at least a month before I'd worry about adding anything else. In that case, I'd rather add some Brett as opposed to whatever dry ale or champagne yeast, as I plan to keep these for awhile and would rather there be at least some bugs in the bottle.

 

I aimed for 3 volumes of CO2, so hopefully there's enough sugar in there. The bottles are the thick-walled 750s, so I'm not concerned about bottle bombs. Also, the finally gravity was 1.001 or 1.002, so there isn't really anything there other than the sugar that I added.

I can't believe this is my first time bottle conditioning. I probably should have done a simple beer and conditioned that one first, but I figured with enough time I could fix any issues that came up.

 

I'm looking forward to kegging that Petit Farmhouse! I think I'll probably bottle half of that batch with some Brett, just to see how that might change things up. The Petit Saison I did a few months ago was with WLP Saison I and I really liked that, so hopefully this compares.

I'm almost positive what was at the top of the carboy was a Brett pellicle...it looked very similar to the Brett C pellicle I had the last time I made a starter with that.

I don't have my notes handy right now, but I believe the lambic blend went in when the gravity was around 1.012-1.015.

 

Congrats on the competition! I just entered my first competition a few weeks ago and got a gold for my Sorachi Lime Saison. It was a small competition, but I was still pretty excited about that.

I'm fine waiting awhile for these bottles to develop. I was just hoping to confirm that I didn't screw them up from the start. Based on what I'm seeing today and what everyone has said, time is the only issue. I've waited 5 months for it already, so I'm fine waiting a month or two more for carbonation. If it takes too long this time, then the next batch I'll add some additional Brett at bottling time to work alongside the lambic blend.