Faster turnaround beers or kettle sours may not clarify by time alone. Generally, time can take care of most of the clarification in mixed fermentation beers with long aging times. For more information on aging and cellaring packaged beer, see Aging and Storage.īeer with Brettanomyces and bacteria, as well as certain Saccharomyces strains, will take longer to clear than other beers. In other words, sometimes mixed fermentation beers never taste good, and allowing the beer to bulk age in the fermenting vessel allows the brewer to make sure the beer is worth packaging.įor more information on when mixed fermentation beers are ready to package based on flavor, see the various Brewing Techniques pages. This approach is less risky as far as potentially packaging a premature beer that never fully reaches the flavor profile that the brewer finds acceptable. Other brewers prefer to allow the maturation of flavors to happen in the fermenting vessel (especially in the case of oak barrels), and then package the beer when it tastes good. Colder temperatures will slow the maturation of the beer. If this approach is taken, keeping the bottles/kegs at room temperature instead of at refrigerator or cellar temperatures is advised so that the yeast and bacteria do not fall dormant. This gives the advantage of being able to sample the beer at different points in time and can serve as a good technique for learning how a particular culture ages. If the gravity is stable, some brewers prefer the option of packaging the beer before the flavor is optimal and allowing the flavor to continue to develop in the bottle/keg. delbruekii tend to need a few months to develop acidity), what flavors the brewer is looking for, etc. This depends on many variables such as is the beer aging in an oak Barrel, what microbes are pitched (for example, Pediococcus and slower species of Lactobacillus such as L. For Mixed Fermentation beers that contain Brettanomyces and lactic acid bacteria, months are often required for the beer to reach an optimal or even just acceptable flavor profile. While determining if the final gravity is stable is the most important factor when choosing when to package mixed fermentation beer, there are also different approaches to choosing when to package beer based on the flavor maturity of the beer. See Soured Fruit Beer Refermentation for details on using fruit in sour beers.įor suggested equipment for reading gravity from small samples, see Density Meters. If fruit was added to an already matured mixed fermentation beer with living Brettanomyces in it, an additional 1-2 months should be given after adding the fruit to ensure that the sugars from the fruit are fully fermented. For example, see the Brettanomyces and Saccharomyces Co-fermentation page for techniques for inoculating Brettanomyces at bottling time into a clean beer that was fermented with just S. With continual batches of beer using the same grist and strains of microbes, a stable final gravity can become more easily predicted by the brewer and waiting for a stable final gravity may no longer be necessary once a known stable final gravity is achieved (note that a change in the strains being used or the grist could result in a different stable final gravity). Therefore, it is best practice to degas the sample by pouring it through a membrane filter such as a coffee filter in order to obtain an accurate gravity reading. Sometimes beer samples will contain high amounts of carbonation due to gradual fermentation from Brettanomyces (in other cases when the beer has aged for a very long time, there may be much less residual carbonation than normal). Each gravity point (.001) of continued fermentation yields roughly 1/2 volume of CO2 (each degree Plato yields 2 volumes of CO2). Keep in mind that sampling sour beer too often can lead to too much oxygen exposure, and care should be taken not not sample too much and purge with CO2 see Mixed Fermentation for more information. If you are unsure then give the beer a bit longer and monitor final gravity. If the gravity is stable over a long time scale (weeks to months, depending again on factors such as the recipe, process, and microbes present), then the beer is probably done. Jay from the Rare Barrel recommends waiting at the final gravity for 2-3 months in mixed fermentation beers to ensure that this gravity is the actual final gravity (~38 minutes in). But rather than looking for a specific number, pay more attention to the stability of the gravity. Generally, lower final gravities are safer because they constrain the extent to which the beer can continue to ferment and generate extra CO 2 in the package. There is no hard and fast rule for when to package based on final gravity because the gravity of the finished beer will depend on recipe, process, and microbes present among other factors.
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