100% Brett Fermentations

A lot of good discussion about Brett in this thread and in Jason's blog:

http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/brett-starter-may-have-failed-read-on.58490/#post-786419

 

Can't remember where I read it, but I've heard you need to pitch about 8 times the amount of brett in order to achieve a quick fermentation.

 

I've done a couple of 100% Brett c saisons. I treat them just like any other beer: 1-1.5 liter starter (for OG 1.050-1.060), same oxygenation (pure O2 through a stone), and temps ~70. They have all finished in 2-3 weeks, with final OGs around 1.005. The first was rich with pineapple and tropical fruit; one of the best beers I've made recently. The other started out with more of a plastic phenolic - I was quite disappointed. After a couple of weeks in the keg, it really turned itself around and largely lost the undesirable flavors and picked up the tropical fruit notes. I can't explain the differences in the two, other than perhaps "that's Brett for ya". I will do 100% Brett beers regularly; love-em!

 

Nice Avatar.

 

We did a 100% Brett C IPA and it gave off great orchard fruit notes. Dried out nicely, but took about a week longer than a normal sacc strain to clean up.

 

I would like to re-enforce what CASK1 discussed concerning that brewing with Brett can be ‘tricky’. I recently brewed a Belgian Ale with a blend of Sacch and Brett. That beer a few weeks after bottling had an unexpected malty/bready flavor that I have never experienced before in making this beer (I made this beer before). It was not what I would classically call an off-flavor but it was an undesired flavor for me. After another 4-5 weeks in the bottle this flavor went away. I too subscribe to the thinking that: "that's Brett for ya".

So, if you experience an undesired flavor in your beer just be patient; hopefully it will go away?

Cheers!

 

I did my first all brett fermentation a few months back. Made a decent (1/2gal) size starter about 5 days before pitching. It is still in the carboy (with peaches) and I probably wont touch it for a few more months but the gravity came down to 1.007 within a month. I tasted it after a month and it had great flavor, but my sister was coming up from GA with a shit load of peaches....so I had to.

I will be doing another all brett beer in a few weeks with a friend, probably some low gravity, highly hopped brown/red ale. Going to make it up as we go (partigyle style).

OldSock might chime in and give amazing advice and information.

 

Thanks! I changed my avatar because sadly we lost her to cancer earlier this week.

 

I just brew a beer with white labs Brett clausenni, is two week in fermentation. down to 1.012 from 1.048. for brett usually high pitching rates are recommended, similar to lager yeast rates. so you will need to step up a starter a couple of times. start with a liter and after is done (is going to take a while to get going, don't panic) make a large starter ,like 4 liters. if you just pitch one vial directly is not going to be enough and is going to take a week or more to get going
Brett clausenni is not a particularly good attenuator so that may be to much crystal.
also brett clausinii is famous for being somehow boring. People talk a lot about the great tropical flavors you get from it, but it seems no one is completely sure how to get them. there is along discussion about if to oxygeneate or not and if this influence the flavors, not sure where that discussion ended but i just oxygenated as a normal beer.
there is very interesting talk form Chad Yacobson from crooked stave about 100 % fermentations here (http://embracethefunk.com/media/)
it seem brett needs lactic acid and some other compounds to produce more interesting flavors. Also brett seems to attenuate better in presence of lactic acid. in my beer i used more than 20 % of acidulated malt. The sample i took today has a hint of tartness but nothing you would call sour. I would definitely include some in your grain bill. Chad also recommends to do an acid rest (around 100 F) to produce feluric acid, which may also help produce more interesting aromas and flavors. The beer i brewed used simcoe and citra so from the samples i took i'm not sure if any of the tropical flavors come from the yeast. Tastes good though but no crazy funk or anything like that. I hope this helps.

 

interesting hop profile. not positive that i'd go that route - esp Columbus - since this yeast really gets mangoey, tropical and floral. it is one of the more beautiful smelling fermenting beer i've made. almost magical.

i use citra when i've made mine. almost a no brainer. some may argue that it is redundant. but the citra's mango blast really pairs well.

people have mentioned the starter. def aim for a 1 litre starter, or pitch 2 vials. it definitely needs close to 2 weeks (esp if you use White labs) if you are using a starter.

we discussed aeration in the other thread. i've done both.

something you should consider: high sparge temp. target 175 - 180 F. make that sucker produce some complex sugars.

fermentation time: if you're mashing at where you're mashing, don't be surprised to see a 3+ week fermentation.

 

wait what? as far as i understand sparge temp does not influence sugar complexity. sparge temp is to kill all enzimes so you fix your fermentables before you start boiling. also i think anything above 175 is going to start extracting tannins.

if you want more complex sugars you need to up the mash temp . like you could mash at 153 for 30 min and then go to 158-160 for 15 min. or just mash at 158 the whole way. also, not really sure if you want bigger sugar with a 100 % brett beer.

 

brett's still going to chew away after the primary fermentation, i believe.
i may be wrong.

sparging stops the enzymatic reaction, yes. it is also a means to further extract more sugars.

i've seen some brewers suggest step-up sparges to go above the 170 F threshold. the claim i've seen is that it further extracts sugars that brett can chomp on. how, i do not know.

 

I agree w/ chianski on mash temperatures moving up to create more complex sugars BUT Brett will chew through those given time. If you have complex sugars in a Brett beer and decide to bottle much higher than 1.002 (that could even be determined high) you could create a highly carbonated beers (bad for bottles if there are too many residual sugars). As the Brett continues to eat the complex sugars after the priming sugar, could get ugly.

In my experience with Brett patience seems to really pay off. Much greater depth of flavor and aroma.

If you want to create body in a Brett beer and keep it there, add some oats or spelt (someone mentioned Chad Yacobson earlier in the the thread and that comes straight from him). This creates proteins (I believe that's what it is) that the Brett cannot chew through. I bring this up because some of my earlier Brett beers turned out very thin because I only used a high mash temp.

I hope that helps and don't be afraid to experiment with Brett. I haven't had one turn out "bad" yet.

 

I brewed a 1.055 all brett beer a while back pitching two vials of brett (brett c and brett b trois). Fermented at 65. The beer came out like a hefe for some reason. I was told that even though I pitched two vials it was still way underpitching. I guess the vials/packets have a fraction of the cell count of a normal yeast vial/pack. I just used a 2 liter starter (10 days) for an all brett pale at the same ferm temp and the beer came out much better and more brett like. Im thinking the underpitching had something to do with the initial all brett beer. Im still trying to understand all brett fermentations but I thought I would throw my experiences out there.

 

Just wanted to add to this. I brewed a low gravity 100% Brett-C earlier in the year and it definitely produced a lot of tropical fruit aromas during fermentation, mainly pineapple. It was a split batch, I pitched at lager rates and aerated one carboy and not the other. I didn't notice a difference between the two. It fermented out in about 2 weeks. I let it ferment in the mid-upper 70s and used about 20% acid malt (although it wasn't noticeable I think it helps with Brett fermentation). There was a small amount of funk that developed later in the bottle. I wouldn't say that Brett-C is boring it just does not produce as much funk as some people like.

To the OP:

http://fermentologist.blogspot.com/2012/11/100-brett-experimentation.html

This is the Brett-C example I brewed and below is the Brett-B example I brewed

http://fermentologist.blogspot.com/2012/12/brett-brux-trois-ipa-c3pa.html

 

I mashed pretty high for both of my 100% Brett attempts, knowing that Brett can attenuate pretty high and it doesn't produce a lot of glycerol. It will be interesting to see if my earlier attempt has become over carbonated by now or not. I basically approached Brett as you would with Sacc, it should attenuate and then slow down and eventually stop. Whether that is true or not remains to be seen, but so far no bottle bombs. By the way I included a bottle of my Brett-B IPA in your box.

 

From what I understand Brett is greedy and as long as there are sugars to consume, it will. The more complex the slower. So as to a bottle bomb, if you are patient like me and keep things around for years at a time, then you might get the bombs. I think you would have to be in the 1.005 or higher range upon bottling for it to happen more quickly but that is a guess and I am an idiot

Can't wait to try that beer! Should be here today.

 

he is doing a 2.5 gallon batch.
also, cell count in brett c is lower than in the other bretts, apparently.