My brett primary doesn't want to quit!

I'd leave it alone.

Just curious. Did you do a starter that propagated cell count? If you did how long did you let the starter go? I'm told that it will start and stop a few times. Wyeast or White Labs? Did you aerate/oxygenate?

 

I've had wyeast 3522 do that to me a few times. Its still bubbling at the 8 week mark. The FG was where it should have been so in the bottles it went.

 

Hopefully oldstock will chime it in as I don't have my notes w/me.

I'm not sure if you'll ever get much sour/funk with a primary Brett fermentation. I've woefully under-pitched and oxygenated my first 100% Brett and got a very clean beer that fermented fast. As I understand it all the WL vials have cell counts for secondary pitching like bottling.

 

I would wait until the fg reading is consistent for a few days before bottling. Even if you still have a few bubbles. I like to go a min. of 4 weeks.

 

My experience with Brett is that it's slow and steady (probably not always the case) with high attenuation. It could slowly eat through the last bit of that sugar, so I would let it ride. I'm with ventura78, plan on at least 4 weeks with Brett.

 

I'm on week 5 with a beer that I co-pitched Wyeast 1388 and White Labs Brett Brux (no starter on either, OG was ~1.046) - it's still bubbling every 5 to 6 seconds as the brett does its thing.

 

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Are you sure it was done when you thought it was? It may have torn through the majority of the sugars and then slowly consumed the rest. My limited experience with Brett is that it, in general, works slowly whether used alone or in conjunction with another yeast. I guess it could be strain dependent.

A similar example to me is 3711. Even on a big gravity beer it will consume 75% of the sugars in 3-4 days and then trickle along for another 3-4 weeks until nearly all the sugar is consumed.

 

Brett used as the primary yeast will pretty much function as any other yeast. It can in some circumstances ferment out in under a week. I let my 100% brett beers sit in primary for about 3-4 weeks. Their OG was about 1.04ish and they fermented to about 1.010ish.

 

You can definitely get some funk from 100% brett fermentations. It will generally develop within the bottle. As far as sourness goes, probably not much, you really need bacteria for that. You might get a little bit from aeration, but from by experience I couldn't notice a difference from the double batch that I brewed and aerated half. Of course my level of aeration could have been insufficient.

 

I don't think that's what a lot of the evidence suggests. I would argue that 2.5 Plato (1.010) is a high finishing gravity for a Brett beer. With a 10 Plato (1.040) original gravity, that's only 75% attenuation, which I would say is on the lower side for a small beer and Brett. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Brett can really slow down and seem to be done when it's actually not.

 

We agree on this part. I know some people argue a lot of aeration can cause Brett to sour some, but there is a point where you can ruin the beer with aeration. The traditional sour that we know from Cantillon, Russian River, Boon, etc, is caused by bacteria.

 

I'm only going based off of my experience. After 3 months in the bottle the carbonation has only increased slightly. I thought Chad Yakobson found something similar to this (regular attenuation in 100% brett fermentation) in his Brett master's thesis? Although I could be mis-remembering. I'll have to read it over again. I honestly was surprised with the FG of the beer myself, but it was constant for about 2 weeks, so I bottled it.

 

So I guess we could say that Brett is like other yeasts in the regard that it can be inconsistent. I would probably err on the side of longer time.