Developing Brett Character

[cytorunner]

Sorry for all of the Brett questions guys but this beer is giving me fits. For the long history please go here, the short history is I tried a 100% Brett fermentation it never took off so I added a packet of US 05 about a week ago. Fermentation took off like a rocket and has now slowed quite a bit. I took a Hydro sample and the beer is around 1008. When tasted the sample it had a relatively neutral character, to be honest the beer was very bland and uninteresting. I expected this but I now want to develop a "classic" Brett character i.e. horsey, leather, funk magic.

I have two questions, the first is should I rack to a secondary and let the beer develop over a few months then package or package now and let the character develop in there. My second question is should I add a new culture of Brett B either in the secondary or at packaging because I am not sure how viable the original pitch was.

Thanks guys I look forward to your thoughts.

Jim

[spiderwrangler]

In your recipe formulation (don't remember from the other thread), did you intentionally include unfermentables (to sacc) to feed the brett in long term conditioning?

[cytorunner]

No, because it was suppose to be a 100% Brett ferment I didn't think to add any unfermentables.

Jim

[spiderwrangler]

Here's my take... the initial pitch didn't seem to take, so another would likely be warranted. The amount of 'stuff' left to work through for the Brett is limited, which means you may have very little flavor contributed in the end by it. If you are wanting to develop more Brett character, I would consider doing a starter on a new vial, and adding some longer chain stuff for the Brett to chew on over time...

[Ozwald]

What was OG? I couldn't find it in the other thread.

[cytorunner]

The OG was 1055
Spider would malto dextrine work?

[spiderwrangler]

It should... perhaps someone who has used maltodex with a brett ferment can comment...

[Ozwald]

The math is telling me you're at 6.2% ABV & 85% ADF, so that's looking pretty good. The brett flavors do take some time to develop & they'll definitely go after those last 8 points but it'll take a while. I've never tried malto-dex, but in theory it should work alright. Other "non-fermentable" sugars could do the trick as well. Personally, I'd let it go for a few weeks & check it's progress then. With 8 points remaining the brett has some wiggle room, but I've never tried to 'save' a beer like this so I'm not 100% sure how much that character will pop through.

I tried to fix beers that had some problems post-fermentation before & I've found that 9 times out of 10 I should've just left it alone, took notes & tried to do it correctly the next time. You might be surprised what happens when you forget about a fermenter for a little while as well.