Brett Bottling

[Asalpaws]

I hate bottling.

Especially when I need to use 330 ml bottles. When the beer is about 9.5 % I'm not going to want a pint!

I had my Belgian triple to get into bottles. I put enough priming sugar to get 3.5 vol of CO2, plenty of fizz to keep with the style.

I had some Brettanomyces bruxellensis (?spelling) culture. Thought I would have a go at bottle conditioning to get that Orval, Brett funk.

My main concern is with an already heavily primed beer Brett can breakdown bigger sugar molecules than sachromyces so potentially could ferment the beer even more. I felt that the FG of 1.010 wouldn't leave too much to eat and being dumped into high alcohol beer is going to limit the Brett activity. Still I used the thick "Duvel" style bottles that should take the high carbonation.

After bottling the batch I used a pippette to put 1 ml of Brett into each bottle.

The bottles went into the warm cupboard near the boiler to carb up. In a sturdy box in case of any bombs. The rest of the Brett went into a DJ of IPA wort I made yesterday.

This way I can try out Brett in two different beers. Cheers T

 

[alanywiseman.]

I have been given a bottle of The Tide and Takers from Ancorage Brewery. It is a Belgium triple bottled with Brett. I look forward to hearing how yours turns out.

 

[Asalpaws]

Me too, I really like splitting batches to taste a "normal" brew vs somthing new. Unfourtunatley I'll have to wait a while for this to condition. T

 

[alanywiseman.]

They do take some time. I am just about to start extract brewin so was thinking of trying to brew a sour or two. Where did you get your brett from?

 

[Asalpaws]

I got a Wyeast pack from brew Uk, not seen any activity yet in the IPA so will let you know if this one's a dud! WL and WY do several strains, I had good ferment with the lambic blend from WY. T

 

[alanywiseman.]

That is good to know. I will keep it in mind when I have a go at it :thumb:

 

[Asalpaws]

Took about 3 days but the Brett IPA has now started to ferment, so the culture was viable!

 

[Asalpaws]

Having a look at the bottles and noticed they have a cute mini pellicle ! So the Brett is obviously alive. Will be nice to compare the straight up version with the Brett spiked one. T

 

[Devonhomebrew]

Brett brux isnt ment for bottling brettanomyces claussenii should really be used for secondary brux or lamicus is mainly a primary fermenter oh i love sours

 

[Asalpaws]

I'm not sure there are any hard and fast rules to which strain/species to use. http://http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2012/08/bottle-conditioning-with-brett-belgian.html?m=1.

I've also used the rest of the pack to ferment some IPA wort so I can see what it's like as a primary fermentor as well. DB do you wash and save your Brett cultures given their pretty expensive?

 

[Devonhomebrew]

Ive been following him for ages now mate his blog is amazing

 

[Asalpaws]

Agreed! Seems like he almost never makes any "conventional" beer. Apparently he now works for a small brewery called modern times, you can get sour beer in a can, will pick some up if I get out to California T

 

[Devonhomebrew]

Mate im making 2 all brett beers tomorrow and 1 american farmhouse ale and 1 wild fermented ale with mircoflorna from devon. all the batches will be 5L each ive already got a nice plain lambic with a pellicle on it i might make a how to for the forum who knows.

 

[Asalpaws]

Nice one, would be cool to see some more non-sachromyces action on the forum. My wild yeast trap has only got the slightest pellicle after 2 weeks. I'll leave it a few more before I dare to taste it! Looking foreward to your brewsT

 

[Devonhomebrew]

:thumb: Ive got a pellicle on the belguin sour mix 1 beer looks lovely

 

[WelshPaul]

So what is the concensus about bottle conditioning a recently brewed ale using Brettanomyces Bruxellensis? I'm thinking of buying a vial of Whitelabs WLP644 (Bruxellensis Trois), but would I be better off with the WLP645 (Claussenii)?

 

[Asalpaws]

I've not tried the Brett version yet, to my mind it's going to be a personal taste thing. Check out the mad Fermentationist page were he compares several strains to bottle with. Might give you an idea what your after, how much funk can you handle ? T

 

[Asalpaws]

Just tried the first of my triple with Brett bottle conditioning, well it is really nice. A bit of earthy flavours from the Brett plays well with the sweet and clove from the Belgian yeast. I did make an all Brett ale and it's just so earthy, like soil in your beer but this works really well. If I could make only one style of beer it would be a close call between Belgian pale ales and IPAs. Cheers T

 

[Asalpaws]

Picture of Brett version

 

[alanywiseman.]

Are you planning on keeping a few bottles back to see how the taste changes with some more aging?