Exciting times. I bottled my "Quick" Sours that were aged on my new-ish oak barrel. The oak barrel held Cab Sauv wine prior to this first batch of beer being put on it. I then split the 5 gallon batch 3 ways. This week I bottled 2 of those variations.
Batch one was mixed with Tart Cherries from Michigan. I got these frozen and just dumped them into my small 2 gallon bucket. Once they defrosted, I added the beer. I had 2.5 lbs of cherries for 2 gallons. If you go back to this post, you will see how this beer had the nastiest pellicle of the group. It was smelling pretty harsh, but the flavor was really good prior to go into the bottle.
Batch two was a one gallon of straight Flanders Red. This batch had the dusty pellicle but in my notes on that previous post, I mentioned it was a bit tame. Not much sour flavor and it just had some oak notes along with a bit of funk from the bugs but what a difference 2 weeks makes. This beer really turned the corner and it was a lot more acidic and had way more depth. The oak flavor even started to subside. I am really shocked and how quick this one turned.
Both beers were still at 1.009 or 1.010. Again it looks like it was probably 1.0095. This dint move from two weeks earlier so I went ahead with the bottling. I aimed for 2.0 volumes of carbonation as well. This is on the lower end for the category but last batch of quick sours really ramped up a second fermantation in the bottle and created gushers. Hoping that the reduced sugar at bottling will help reduce that while still giving it enough carbonation to create a brighter flavor to carry the sourness.
Since I used less sugar I am going to let these sit for at least 3 weeks - probably more like a month. Once I open them in a month it will have been close to 7 months total for the sours. Some of the delay was due to the fact that I bought a house and essentially the past 2 months have been just too crazy. The goal was six months so I am only one month off. Here's hoping the tasting day tastes as promising as the bottle day.
See you in a month on this one!
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