It's been a few months since my last brew day, but I think I'll have some time this weekend to whip something up. Since my opportunities to brew have been few and far between, I want to do something I haven't done before, so I'm thinking a 100% Brett beer. Here's my plan. Feedback appreciated. Grain bill will be mostly 2:1 ratio of Pilsner:Wheat, with maybe a half pound of Crystal 60L or something. No hops. I'll chill to about 100 degrees after the boil, then throw in a carton of Goodbelly. I'll wrap the carboy in fermwrap to maintain a 100 degree temp or so. After a day or two, I'll pitch a large starter of Brett C. My thought is that I'll be giving the lacto a head start to get some decent acidity before pitching the Brett. Is this necessary?
I don't know if it's necessary, but I think it's a good idea. Lacto likes those nice warm temperatures that would be too much for any yeast (other than kveik!), although I've heard anecdotally that the L. plantarum in GoodBelly can sour pretty well at lower temperatures. I assume you're going to let it cool down to the 70s before pitching the Brett? Also, if I were you I would get that Brett starter going soon. It takes longer than Sacch. Big picture, I think this is a great plan and I'm eager to hear how it turns out.
That was my thought. I want a decent level of sourness, so I figured giving the lacto some alone time with the wort before pitching yeast would achieve that. Yeah, I'll probably unplug the fermwrap around 12 hours before pitching the Brett.
That'd work. I've done it by pitching on the upper side of their fermentation range and let it free fall for a couple days before pitching brett in.
If you're not including hops at all, you can just skip the kettle souring bit. Just copitch your Goodbelly and Brett or do the Milk the Funk Reverse Kettle Sour technique after you've cooled your wort to ambient. Either way you'll get good acidity. It's not necessary. Lactobacillus sp. (as well as other LAB species) grow MUCH faster than do yeast and, since Brettanomyces sp. are on the slower end of the growth range for yeast, it'll give your lacto a pretty decent head start. As an aside, what are you looking to achieve with the Brett C? If you have a pure culture, Brett C, which is just one particular strain of the B. anomalus species named after Claussen, is maltose negative, so it will not give you a complete fermentation. I'd think strongly about using another species. In specific a B. brux variant. B. brux var. drie perhaps?
I was basically just looking at the flavor profile, which I want to be more on the fruity side than the "horse blanket" side. Would Brett Lambicus be a better option as far as attentuation goes, or should I consider throwing a packet of S-05 in later into the fermentation to help the Brett C finish the job?
You could certainly copitch with a sacch. strain, but using B. brux var. drie/vrai would also be a good option.
One other question concerning timeline, since I'm sort of planning this last minute. I plan to pick up my ingredients tonight and get the Brett starter going immediately. If I brew tomorrow, I know the starter won't be ready by then. So if I pitch the lacto and let that sit by itself for two days, by Monday night could I pitch my Brett starter? I don't plan to cold crash it, so I'll just pitch the whole thing. I know it may not have reached high krausen by then, but is it good enough for government work? This will be a pretty low gravity brew (OG ~1.045), so cell count won't be as big of a concern.
You should be fine. Cell count should be determined based primarily on the volume of your main beer and growth rate of the microbe in question. The amount of sugar in solution is only important if you are pitching a low gravity starter into a high gravity environment, as the yeast won't be properly acclimated and a certain percentage will probably experience osmotic shock.
So people really truely enjoy 100% Brett fermented beers? To me they always seem kind of hollow and lacking any mouthfeel. I know you can get crazy flavor profiles with them they just always seem rather watery to me. Maybe it’s from the lack of glycerol production? Might just be my personal perception of the ones I’ve had recently?
Depends which Brett you're talking about. When most people talk about Brett they're talking about some B. bruxellensis variant like lambicus or drie. There are four other species in the genus. All of which have different fermentation characteristics and carbon source utilization. That said, I'd agree with you. The high attenuation of B. brux can lead to the perception of thinness. I find that low bitterness, higher protein content of the wort, higher hopping rates, slightly higher fermentation temperatures, and high carbonation help with the perception of body, as some variants of B. brux can use carbon sources up to 14 units long. Most normal sacch. strains cannot use anything over two units, though some, like S. cerevisiae var diastaticus can use maltotriose and other longer sugars as it has enzymes that "normal" sacch. lacks.
I'd say your original plan will work just fine. I've done something very similar before – 50/50 pils and wheat malt, sour worted with GB for 2 days, then boiled with some mosaic. Chilled, and pitched a starter of Brett. C. The beer turned out fantastic, and even better after a year.
So I ended up postponing my original brew day indefinitely due to weather. However, I went ahead and picked up my ingredients and started a Brett starter to prep for whenever I get around to it. I have a couple questions around that... The yeast I picked up was Wyeast Brett Lambicus with a manufacturing date of October 2017. The pack was really swollen when I bought it. I got home and pitched it into 1 quart of 1.040 wort starter and put it on a stir plate. At about the 3 day mark, there was decent krausen on the starter. At around the 7 day mark, I turned off the stir bar to let the starter settle for decanting and steppping up. At the 11 day mark (today), the yeast was well settled so I decanted as much as I could off of the yeast. I took a gravity reading of the starter beer I decanted off, and it was still at a gravity of 1.035. (!!) It was slightly funky, but VERY tart. I went ahead and made another quart of a lower-gravity starter (1.025), pitched it onto the yeast and put it back on the stir plate. So, is it possible that the Wyeast pack I received just didn't have great viability? I know that Brett starters take longer than sacc starters, but most of what I read said that 1 week should be sufficient to reach terminal gravity of each step. Also, I was surprised by the tartness, which was past kombucha-level tartness. I knew that Brett could add some acidity, but I always thought you needed lactobacillus to get that level of tartness. Is that normal for Brett Lambicus, or do I potentially have something else swimming in my starter?
1 week definitely isn't enough time to reach a stable terminal. Maybe enough to reach maximum cell density, but it'll take longer to ferment to dryness. Brett in an oxygen rich environment (like a starter) will produce acetic acid. Don't worry, as long as you keep your main beer sealed, it won't do this. FWIW, yeast grow WAY better in a oxygen rich environment, so making your starter like this is recommended.
I never circled back on this, but for the curious here's what I did. 5 lbs Pilsner 2 lbs Wheat 1 lb Vienna 1.5 lb Flaked Oats (to help with mouthfeel) 4 oz Acid Malt Five gallons went into the fermenter. My OG was 1.040, which was quite a bit lower than my usual efficiency. I was anticipating closer to 1.050, so I'm not sure what happened there. I mashed high (to also help with mouthfeel) at 158 degrees for 70 minutes. Boiled for 45 minutes with no hops, cooled to 90 degrees, wrapped the carboy in a fermwrap and pitched 3/4 carton of mango Goodbelly. After 24 hours, I unplugged the fermwrap, and 12 hours after that I pitched the Brett Lambicus starter. I took a sample the other day, which was 10 days after pitching the Brett. Gravity was 1.012, and it tastes beautiful. Nicely tart and clean. I'll bottle and shoot for high carbonation in a couple of weeks. I may rack off a gallon onto some fruit for a couple months just for kicks.
