Old Ale Q's

Brewing Processes
1

Hi Everyone,

I brewed using the Wyeast Old Ale blend (9097 I think) back in January and wanted to get peoples opinion on bottling after using this strain. Original gravity was 1.068 and was transferred to secondary about 4 weeks later with a gravity reading of 1.016. I finally got around to taking a sample a couple of weeks ago and the gravity is down to 1.009 and the beer tastes pretty good. So now to my questions:
I am planning to bottle this and hopefully age some of them for a significant period of time so do you think I am safe to do that already or do I need to wait a while longer and let the Brett continue to do its stuff?
Once I do bottle should I be adding fresh yeast to ensure carbonation and if so how much and what yeast?

I did ask these same questions of Jess at Wyeast and he advised to go ahead BUT to keep a constant check on the bottles which worried me somewhat… he also recommended I use one of Wyeast products (of course) to add to the beer at bottling but if I did use liquid yeast should I add the whole packet?
Thanks in advance for any advice.

2

In terms of knowing when it’s safe to bottle I would wait another week or so and take another reading, possibly repeating this once more (wait another week and another reading) if it is stable at 1.009 it’s probably safe. I have not used this yeast nor, for that matter any brett yet so I don’t know but it seems like 3 or 4 weeks of stable readings are pretty safe. It probably won’t hurt to add fresh yeast at bottling, I think a general rule of thumb is .25 packet of something like us05.

3

I made an old ale using the old ale blend.  After transferring to secondary I left it for 3 months which seems to be ok.  Considering how long your beer has been in the secondary you will probably be ok.  However, it’s not a bad idea to take morticaixavier’s advise and check the gravity in another week or so before bottling.