Culturing up yeast blends

[jceg316]

I'm very excited, in the Brew UK yeast lucky dip I got 3 yeast blends: American farmhouse, Belgian sour mix and Berlinner Weisse blend. However as you may know they are out of date and the cell count is low. If I culture these up on a stir plate will it throw off the balance of bugs?

Thanks.

 

[thegrantickle]

Yes, but I wouldn't worry about it. I would still culture them up and use as normal.

 

[jceg316]

I was just doing some reading around this, sacc will grow a lot faster than brett, so if I make a starter it will begood for sacc but I suppose will need to wait a long time for the brett to grow. I've read when making a starter for pure Brettanomyces it needs around 10 days. If I don't grow the brett up fully will it get stressed being pitched into a full batch of beer?

 

[thegrantickle]

I was just doing some reading around this, sacc will grow a lot faster than brett, so if I make a starter it will begood for sacc but I suppose will need to wait a long time for the brett to grow. I've read when making a starter for pure Brettanomyces it needs around 10 days. If I don't grow the brett up fully will it get stressed being pitched into a full batch of beer?

No. The thing about Brett is that it is slow, but extremely aggressive. A single cell of Brett will take hold of a batch and ferment it out. This is why breweries have 'kill zones' in their mixed ferm rooms, where if you go into them you can't go back into the 'clean' brewery. Brett doesn't really stress in the same way as sacc. Also, bear mind if you ferment with ONLY Brett you will get a pretty clean fermentation, rather than the funky flavours and aromas that a lot of 0eople use Brett for.

 

[jceg316]

bear mind if you ferment with ONLY Brett you will get a pretty clean fermentation, rather than the funky flavours and aromas that a lot of 0eople use Brett for.

That's interesting, do you know why this is?

 

[thegrantickle]

That's interesting, do you know why this is?

Yes. It's because the precursor for funk is created by the fermentation of maltose, which Brett can't do (apart from a couple of select strains). Sacc can easily ferment maltose, producing the precursor, and then this is further broken down by the Brett to give those barnyard aromas. The best yeasts to primary with if you're after this are saison yeasts (I like belle saison).

 

[PhilBrew]

Hi

bear mind if you ferment with ONLY Brett you will get a pretty clean fermentation, rather than the funky flavours and aromas that a lot of 0eople use Brett for.

That's interesting, do you know why this is?

... actually, I don't think it's as straightforward as that, it may be cleaner, it may be funkier ... depends on the Brett strain(s) ... see there (link).

Cheers, PhilB

 

[thegrantickle]

Hi
... actually, I don't think it's as straightforward as that, it may be cleaner, it may be funkier ... depends on the Brett strain(s) ... see there (link).

Cheers, PhilB

100% my explaination is simplified. Milk the funk wiki is by far the best resource if you want to learn more about Brett and wild cultures.

 

[Sadfield]

I don't think it will matter too much, you might get an imbalance between the saccharomyces if there's more than one in the blend, but the brett will eventually do its thing. The American Farmhouse is pretty nice and reputedly from Lost Abbey.