Averagely Perfect Saison - Poll #20 - Brett Timing

Absolutely no idea. Good luck, y'all!

 

i would think the mash schedule, water profile, and kettle acidification would sort of drive this.

Maybe we should take a poll for what flavors we're wanting the combo of yeasts to produce, and then picking the variables to acheive that rather than just blindly voting on gravities to pitch at

 

Because that sounds nothing like how we do things in AMERICA

 

I voted for 1.018. Honestly I think a range might be better as getting into carboys/better bottles/buckets over and over sampling to get gravity readings oxidizing the beers.

 

I have no clue so I will leave my vote open for now, but I usually think in terms of time, not gravity of when to pitch the brett. My feeling is just to pitch the yeast after X amount of days. I don't baby sit my beers and constantly measure gravity and I don't intend to start now.

For me I would say pitch brett after 10 days of fermentation at whatever that gravity is.

 

I copitch my brett with my sacc.

 

1.018 or ~ 2/3 of the (proposed) attenuation.

 

Here is a write in for 1.044.

This would essentially be a co-pitch, which is what I voted for several polls ago. In my limited experience WLP644 takes a while to get going - and by the time 3724 reaches its potential stall point, WLP644 should be geared up to keep this fermentation chugging along. I would also prefer not to be constantly checking gravities. And I also want to let WLP644 do a large portion of the work so that it is as expressive as possible.

 

I'll also write-in 1.044, for the reasons FeDUBBELFIST stated. If that is deemed sneaky, underhanded, and cheating, then 1.033.

However, I think for most of us, hitting a gravity mark will be tricky. I'm likely to pitch before I go to work, when I get home, or when I go to bed. But I'm not likely to check gravity at each of those times.

 

In as much as the gravities at pitch influence flavors, It's really just two sides of the same coin. Decide what flavor you want and then think about the gravity that best achieves it.

However, unless you have lots of experience making beers with Brett, I think there will be an element of picking blindly.

Because I don't have a lot of Brett experience, let me put this idea out there to stimulate discussion that might help people from picking blindly:

1. if you pitch Brett early, it acts on more simple sugars, and you end up with fruity esters.
2. if you pitch Brett late, it has an opportunity to act on fermentation byproducts of the primary strain, and converts them into barnyard funk.

I'm not sure this is right, but maybe the ensuing discussion will help people make decisions.

 

I also think it may be too tough to hit a specific gravity and don't want to mess with opening the fernenter too much. We voted not to co-pitch, but I would like to see an early brett pitch. On my own I would probably pitch it the morning after brew day so I chose the earliest option 1.033.

 

How about instead of gravity we say X days? I agree with some of the rest it will be near impossible without multiple times opening the bucket/carboy

 

Anybody out there who's actually done this? To echo what @pweis909 said: For those with mid-fermentation-Brett-additions experience what are we looking for here? How do we manage it?

When I use 3724 (Dupont dregs) I never have a stalling problem, others report some major stalling. My last one was 90% attenuation in 8 days (I ferment in the 80s) so some nimbleness required here (or not) or the mark could be missed. I can not imagine not letting the 3724 add it's distinctive aromas which means at least 3(?) days by itself.

My experience with 644 as primary (once) was mostly a conventional fermentation schedule. Initially gravity dropped as normal, but extra time did take a few more points off, it ended at 82%. Were esters created initially different than anything that happened in the last few points? When I've added Orval dregs at bottling the results seem to be a more complex beer, seems to be even drier with tartiness. Can we expect anything like that here? Or something else?

Not at all a big fan of taking multiple gravity readings. I voted for "at bottling" just to avoid this dilemma. But there were 39 voters who said "In primary, sometime before attenuation with the Sacch strain(s) is complete" . . . your names are public, now's the time to 'splain how to best manage this.

The recipe is coming off a symmetry-adding Double-Tie poll results and there are lots of odd numbers to vote on here. Any Numerologist that knows the difference between a mash paddle and a canoe paddle will tell you this is some serious good beer karma rolling along . . . let's get this right.

 

My fears with pitching 644 too early is that would lead to a tropical fruit bomb. Don't get me wrong, I like that in some beers, but it doesn't seem like a saison. I want the DuPont to have a little time to do its thing, but with the gravity we are working with (1045), "stalling" is not something that should be considered.

I also don't closely monitor my fermentations, so aiming for a specific gravity point to pitch the "brett" seems very troublesome. I went with 1.024, basically when the DuPont is halfway done. So based on @PortLargo's reasoning, I will likely pitch around day 4.

@PortLargo I pitched 644 at kegging time into a rye saison (using Belle Saison) this past fall. The keg with the 644 is better than the plain one, but even with 3 months under pressure, there is nothing that could be identified as brett. Knowing what we know about 644, I am not surprised by that outcome. Based on that experiment, I voted to add the 644 before fermentation was complete in hopes that something a little closer to magic would happen.

We should also consider the amount of 644 to be pitched. A small amount may never amount to much if the sacc finishes up before the brett really gets going.

 

I've only pitched at bottling and at the same time as sacc, so I honestly don't have a great handle anything in between. Anyone with more experience care to elaborate on their results?

 

I think the reason it was voted in was because many were fearful of doing so at bottling. I'd be willing to bet not a lot of people use this process in general.

 

I originally wanted it at bottling, as it is the simplest method, but since we're pitching prior to full attenuation, I voted 1.033, since I'm figuring* that'd be just about high krausen on this beer. Really give the brett a chance to do whatever it is that all of y'all that voted for it to be added this way think it'll do.

*I have no idea how accurate this would be, but it'd be when I'd toss it in.