Blending the Sour Pumpkin Wit

Today, bottled up some beer.

Remember when I brewed my Whacko Wife Pumpkin Witbier, I had about one extra gallon of wort that I let ferment in a separate fermentor? If you don't remember, you can refresh your memory at Whacko Wife Pumpkin Brew Day. I mentioned that my plan for that extra gallon was to blend it with my Rationalité Poison d'Ereeeek, which is my sour Flanders Red style beer.

It has been awhile, but finally decided to go ahead and blend the two beers and bottle up the result.

My bottling experience was a bit "old-school" for me. For quite awhile, when I've bottled beers, I have used my keg and Beer Gun to fill the bottles. Today, I decided to use my Mr. Beer "bottling bucket" and bottle-filling wand. I don't even remember the last time I bottled using this technique before today.

First, I transferred the gallon of Witbier from the fermentor to the bottling container. I added enough priming sugar to handle 2 gallons of beer.

Then, I added in about a gallon of my Rationalité Poison d'Ereeeek from the keg it has been sitting in since September.

Adding the Sour Beer.

I bottled with the wand into 15 12 oz bottles, 2 bombers, and one liter PET bottle. Those are sitting in my basement in a cooler waiting for the yeast to eat the priming sugar to do its magic.

Now, there are a couple of things to think about.

First, I don't know if the yeast is awake enough to do the carbonation. Both beers have been done for long enough that maybe the yeast have given up ever getting sugar again. I probably should have pitched some more yeast into the bottling "bucket". Oh welll.

Second, the Rationalité Poison d'Ereeeek already had a bit of carbonation, so it is possible that assuming the yeasts are ready and willing to do their job, the resulting beer might be a bit over-carbonated.

I do think it will end up working out just fine. I may carbonate at room temperature for 3 weeks rather than the standard 2. I don't think the extra carbonation from the sour beer will be major enough to cause problems. RDWHAHB.

My Pumpkin Witbier.

So, I'll let you know how this blend works in about 3 weeks ... early February. The sample of the blend tasted pretty good. The Pumpkin Witbier balanced out some of the sour of the Rationalité Poison d'Ereeeek, but it was still a sour beer.

I am really looking forward to trying this in a few weeks.

Go Broncos!