Blending Brett Beers in the Bottle

[BoulderBrewer]

Anybody have experience with this? I am planning to blend a Brett beer with other Belgian beer styles. I was planning on blending different portions of the brett and non brett beers. I was wondering if there would be problems if I put too much non brett beer (75%) in with in with too little brett beer (25%). Would this over-carbonate and eventually possibly cause bottle bombs because the brett would chew through so much of the longer-chain sugars in the non brett beer? Also when doing this kind of blending how long would you wait before opening these bottles? We can assume that both the beers are finished fermenting when I bottle them? Any other thoughts? I am interested in trying this.

[spiderwrangler]

Whether the Brett would cause over carbonation would depend on what is left in the beer you are blending it with. Priming sugar would likely push it over the top... If you are packaging a bunch, you could always pull a bottle every few weeks and chill it and open to see where your conditioning is, and if you get to the point that they are becoming over carbed, it'd be time to chill the whole lot down.

[BoulderBrewer]

Yeah, as far as that goes I was thinking of not putting any priming sugar in at all, but then I also remember reading that brett doesn't create as much CO2 as Saccharomyces does. So maybe I will use half priming sugar? There will also be flavor change over time even in the bottle correct?

[anday6]

Brett produces roughly half the CO2 as sach does. You would need quite a bit of priming sugar for an all brett beer anyways, since there's no sugars left.

Your carbonation will be a sum of: (CO2 from brett chewing on the residuals in the standard beer, likely down to 1.002-1.006ish)+(CO2 from priming sugar needed to prime the standard beer)+(CO2 from the priming sugar needed to prime the brett beer).

The contributions from each of those will depend on the blend ratio and the residual sugars of the standard beer.

[BrewerJ]

Like everyone else mentioned above you need to know the FG of both beers before we can really answer you question.

[animaldoc]

What is your goal for these beers? Are you planning on blending to balance flavors so you can drink right away or are you looking to blend for further maturation in the bottle?


If I were looking for a balanced beer for quick consumption, I would prime normally as the sacc from the non brett beer will quickly consume the priming sugars and generate CO2. Once carbonated I would store cold to prevent further carbonation from the brett eating the non-brett beer residual sugar.

If I were looking to blend brett and non-brett to allow long term aging and complexity from the changing flavors, I probably wouldn't add any or a very small amount (1/4?) of priming sugar and rely on the brett to eat the residual sugars for carbonation.

[BoulderBrewer]

I am thinking of putting them away for long term storage and aging. working on getting enough champagne bottles right now to bottle all of it. I am not sure of the FG of either yet because they aren't finished just thinking of what I will do with them when they are finished.

[BrewerJ]

If you are going to use champagne bottles then there is much less to worry about. I did a saison with brett and bottle conditioned normally. The saison was down to 1006 before priming and is sitting at 1004 six months later and very carbonated.

Now unless you sterile filter you will still have sac in the beer and it will consume sugar faster than the brett. So your initial priming charge will be mostly consumed by sac and not the brett. If it were me and the FG of the blend was 1012 I would bottle condition normally and let the brett chew down to get a higher carb and chill when bottles reach desired level. If the FG is more like 1020 then i would use maybe 1/4 the amount of priming sugar and just let the brett chew on the residuals. Alcohol level will also play a role, the higher it is the slower the brett will work.

There are many factors at play my best advice is to try multiple combinations of sugar and blends. Keep very good notes including time and conditioning temperature. Make sure you use heavy glass and enjoy the rewards.