Newbie question: brett dregs in secondary?

You likely would -- no particular need to make a starter for brett if it's for secondary. It should start to be apparent in a couple of weeks and then just get stronger from there.

 

Keep it simple at this point...just buy a Brett culture of your choice, IMHO.

 

It's about the same price for the brett or the brett plus 4 bottles of Rayon Vert. White Labs probably has about the same cell count, too. Wyeast brett is going to be a lot of cells for secondary fermentation in a gallon of beer.

 

Yes, you can just use the dregs from the bottles of Rayon Vert, no need to buy the brett if you just want to use it as a secondary yeast in a 1 gallon batch.

You can just add the dregs directly from the bottles into the 1 gallon carboy. No need to make a starter with the brett dregs. No need to rack to secondary, either. Let your saison yeast do its thing for a couple of days, then add the brett dregs directly to your primary. Brett will find stuff to eat that the saison yeast did not. Keep in mind that you will want to leave the beer on the brett for a few months (2 months absolute minimum in my opinion) and you will need additional bottle conditioning time (another 2 to 3 months minimum). Also, if you can, bottle into thick bottles such as Rayon Vert or Orval empties.

 

Just for your info, I emailed Green Flash b/c I made a starter from a four-pack of Rayon Vert and wanted to know what was in it. Mike Hinkley emailed me back to let me know that they use Brett Brux from White Labs in it.

 

A bottle of Rayon Vert dregs into the primary is fine. No need to pay an arm and a leg for a pure culture (ever in my opinion). Just add to the primary. If you plan on fermenting the Saison yeast in the upper 70s or higher thn wait until it cools back down into the lower to mid 70s to add the Brett, if you are keeping it in the lower/mid 70s you can add it earlier. Stressing out Brett on temp could throw off some of the unwanted bi-products.

 

As long as it isn't in a bucket, a couple months is fine. Longer may be ok, Brett can metabolize autolysed yeast to a certain extant. You might get other opinions, this is one of the top 5 Homebrew topics people argue about on the Internet.

 

And your assessment is probably the most rational take on it I've read. The only additional thing I would add is that hops and autolysed yeast are not the best of friends, but brett added for secondary fermentation will also demolish a lot of hop character anyway, so that shouldn't be an issue there either (dry hopping immediately prior to bottling is an exception).

So far as amount of time to let it go, anyone saying multiple months is being overly conservative. Just keep sampling until you get to a stable FG (preferrably below 1.010), and then you can bottle. Time in bottle to condition to your liking, on the other hand, can take a very long time, indeed -- I like to drink a bretted homebrew every week or so until it hits a sweet spot. There are many interesting stages to go through (mine went from brightly tropical to smoky phenolic to champagne dry in the course of a month of additional conditioning; really glad it got away from the smoky taste).

 

It is amazing how the taste and body of a brett'd beer will change over time. I've got a saison that went through a rough medicinal phase that is drinking very pleasantly now.

 

Dregs are great. I use them all the time for sources of Brett and for souring bugs. Grab some Orval, have a drink and funk up a beer.

 

Sorry to revive this thread... but what is the recommended temperature to keep the brett at when it's in secondary? I added some dregs directly to a 1 gallon secondary last week. The ambient temperature in my current space has been ranging from 70-75F for the past week. Where should I have it, or will ambient in that range be okay?

 

Brettanomyces will do just fine at 70-75F.