I'm planning on brewing a Tripel in the near future, and would like to try adding Brett to it after primary fermentation has completed, then letting it go as long as necessary before bottling in order to avoid bottle bombs. My understanding is that Brett will ferment sugars that Sacc strains won't. This being the case, does this mean that I should wait until the gravity of the beer reaches 1.000 before bottling with priming sugar in order to avoid bombs?
Yes, ideally you want fermentation to be complete prior to bottling. Does completion of fermentation equate to a final gravity of 1.000? Maybe and maybe not. I have a batch going right now where I co-pitched Sacch and Brett for the primary fermentation (Wyeast 3789). I have brewed with this yeast blend before (twice) and for the first batch it was complete at 1.005 and the second was 1.003. So, in these instances completion of fermentation was not 1.000. The 'method' for deciding when a fermentation is complete is taking SG readings over a couple of days and if there is no change the final gravity has been reached. Perhaps this is your best bet here as well. Cheers!
I'll only add that you may want to consider more than a couple days between gravity readings to check terminal gravity with Brett. Couple days for sac is reasonable. Couple days for Brett is likely insufficient since it's such a slow mover.
Thanks for the input guys. I'm going to shoot for a 1.008 FG after Sacc is done. I'm planning on doing a 5 gallon batch where I'll bottle half as-is after primary fermentation is finished, then put the other half in a secondary with Brett B.
Brett can be a slow attenuator. It'll likely take the gravity close to 0 in a few months. My recommendation would be to package when you see consecutive gravity readings taken a month apart.
Hopefully not hikacking ... I'll be brewing my first Brett batch in a couple of weeks. If one waits months, ensuring a stable SG, etc., is it a safe bet that bottles will still carbonate in a few weeks? Thanks / Happy New Year / Cheers!
If the beer is under 2 degrees Plato, it can safely be bottled in champagne bottles. I only recommend using Champagne bottles for Brett beers unless you plan to pasteurize (I wouldn't want to do that personally)
FWIW, at my last brewery I took bottles of our porter and pale ale and added 2 ml of Brett Lambicus from Wyeast packs to each bottle. Porter was at 1.018 at terminal gravity and both beers were bottled completely flat. Pale ale was 1.010. 3 months later, the bottles were well carbonated and had begun to take on some Brett cherry pie flavors. At 6 months, they were highly carbonated, but not gushers. When I moved, I did not take the bottles with me, so I can't comment on how they acted after 6 months. I would be willing to bet that the Porter will make bottle bombs if there are any bottles left. The pale ale will be fine.
Teach them not to fuck with me! JK, we had a case to hold experiments like that in the case of bottle bombs. They're aware of them.
I just want to add that there's nothing special about a gravity reading of 1.000. At 1.000, there will still be sugars and/or dextrins in the beer.
This is very helpful. One of our biggest "challenges" is having beer stay around long enough, but this one will be a 10 gallon batch with others coming right behind in the pipeline. Hopefully, there will be enough left over that planning for this will be worthwhile! Roger that. I think the sg of ethanol is ~0.76 or so (too lazy to look it up right now). Therefor there has to be some heavier (more dense) stuff if there's an ethanol:waterther mixture with SG of 1.000 or more. It sounds like the ticket is conditioning in the fermenter, and finally getting my el cheapo refractometer either sorted out or replaced.
