Beer Forum

I've had 2 sour beers in the closet now for 18+ months. I really need to bottle these bad boys, but the pellicle won't fall! Even when I agitate the carboy.

I have decided to Lager them at 44 degrees F and see if that will make the pellicle fall.

I have to bottle these, won't all my yeast be asleep or dead after I cold crash?

Should I prime and then pitch maybe Champagne or mead yeast? They both have really low Final Gravities, right around 1.002.

Any suggestions out there?

Your pellicle does not NEED to fall in order for you to bottle. If you are happy with the flavor profile of the beers than by all means package them up! At any rate, an 18 mos old sour beer will be very flat (with hardly any residual CO2 dissolved) and the brett and bacteria will be tired. Your best bet is to pitch a fresh vial of yeast, dry ale or champagne yeast to your bottling bucket to ensure proper carbonation. After waiting a year and a half you would be pretty pissed off if they never carbonated b/c you didn't add fresh yeast at bottling.

If you want to get real crazy you could pitch a fresh vial/pack of brett as your bottling yeast. Do be aware that if you choose to use an english ale strain that some will produce diacetyl upon carbonating and your bottles will take about 1 mos to clean up the diacetyl produced by the bottling yeast with aid from the brettanomyces. I do not think you would need to add a full pack of dry yeast, rather a quarter of the pack should be sufficient. I like lalvin EC-1118 champagne yeast as it can handle higher alchohol levels and acidic environments with a low pH. Plus it only costs about 1$ instead of a 4$ fermentis pack.

Awesome, thanks!

Yeah I was only waiting for the pellicle because that's what vinnie of Russian River said to do on the podcast...