Brett question

[Petedadink]

Yes, The person that taught this to me shared both brett only and mixed cultured beers and all were real good.
They told me during a trip to Belgium they got a chance to stop in at Cantillion while they were transfering wort from the kettles to the cool ships. She discribed the taste like sweet Cream O Wheat. That sparked the idea.
Ive had good luck with about 1 to 2 oz of organic whole wheat. it will slowly break down to look like polished bits about the size of rice.

[sweetcell]

Will I pick up on any Brett after just one month?

unlikely, but not impossible. i would give it more time, like 3 months, then take a taste. if you're bottling, you should also take into consideration that if you bottle too soon, the brett may continue to ferment in the bottle. could result in over-carbonation or bottle bombs.

I have a friend thats been adding whole organic wheat spaghetti noodles (uncooked) to her beers after primary. Brett works slow due to lack of food. The starches in the wheat noodles feed the brett and dont impart any flavor to the finished beers.

a similar technique is to boil some oatmeal and add the resulting starchy soup/liquor to the beer. like a turbid mash, the goal is to add starches that brett (and bacteria) can slowly breakdown.

it's not the lack of food that explains brett's slow pace in secondary, at least that's not the main cause. brett is slow because we're typically pitching a small number of cells into a harsh environment (alcohol, low pH, no oxygen, etc.) that last one - lack of O2 - is a major obstacle for brett's reproduction, so the pitched cells have to truck along slowly and can't bud much. lack of food is lower on the list of obstacles. brett can munch on a lot of things in a beer that don't register as sugars - hell, it can eat wood!

speaking of eating something other than sugars: according to chad yacobson, we're not that interested in brett fermenting sugars in secondary anyways. the flavor contributions that we're looking for - barnyard, horse blanket, fuity, etc - come from brett's transformation of sacch's by-products. giving the brett sugar means that they'll take longer before it starts to digest those by-products. chad gives the blow-by-blow here: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/unders ... rs-298943/

[Fermented_minds]

I am making a Saison that I will add Brett to after primary ferment. For those of you that have EXPERIENCE using Brett, is this a real slow working yeast? Ive read a bit about it, I know it will continue to work for long periods, which can cause good and bad outcomes etc...Im making a 1.065 Saison that I will allow the primary fermentation for about a month, then Im planning on adding a vial of Brett and giving it another month. This is the first of many planned Brett Saison and wild ale experiments, next time I will give the Brett 2 months and so on... Also, after reading Farmhouse Ales by Markowski, I might allow the Saison yeast to work on its own for 2-3 months... Will I pick up on any Brett after just one month? Thx.

Totally depends on the strain of Brett. I have used this Brett C from White Labs in an old ale and it took a few months to get some good Brett character:

http://www.whitelabs.com/yeast/wlp645-b ... claussenii

It was quite good once it developed. The high alcohol of the base might have been an issue, though I did make a starter.

I also used this Saison/Brett blend from The Yeast Bay a couple months back, and the beer had really nice Brett character after about 4-6 weeks at 70-72 F:

http://www.theyeastbay.com/wild-yeast-a ... yces-blend

It contains 2 strains of Brett that are not offered by other yeast companies and seem to produce character fairly quickly.

I personally like the Brett character in saisons when the Brett/Sacch are pitched together. If you ad Brett after primary, I would do it once stable gravity is reached. After that point, the Sacch won't contribute much anyways.

Cheers!

[crashlann]

I am making a Saison that I will add Brett to after primary ferment. For those of you that have EXPERIENCE using Brett, is this a real slow working yeast? Ive read a bit about it, I know it will continue to work for long periods, which can cause good and bad outcomes etc...Im making a 1.065 Saison that I will allow the primary fermentation for about a month, then Im planning on adding a vial of Brett and giving it another month. This is the first of many planned Brett Saison and wild ale experiments, next time I will give the Brett 2 months and so on... Also, after reading Farmhouse Ales by Markowski, I might allow the Saison yeast to work on its own for 2-3 months... Will I pick up on any Brett after just one month? Thx.

Totally depends on the strain of Brett. I have used this Brett C from White Labs in an old ale and it took a few months to get some good Brett character:

http://www.whitelabs.com/yeast/wlp645-b ... claussenii

It was quite good once it developed. The high alcohol of the base might have been an issue, though I did make a starter.

I also used this Saison/Brett blend from The Yeast Bay a couple months back, and the beer had really nice Brett character after about 4-6 weeks at 70-72 F:

http://www.theyeastbay.com/wild-yeast-a ... yces-blend

It contains 2 strains of Brett that are not offered by other yeast companies and seem to produce character fairly quickly.

I personally like the Brett character in saisons when the Brett/Sacch are pitched together. If you ad Brett after primary, I would do it once stable gravity is reached. After that point, the Sacch won't contribute much anyways.

Cheers!

Just read this. Thanks Fermented Minds, very cool info from experience. I will post results. Im down below 1.008 and pitching the Brett tonight.