The Mixed Fermentation Thread

[Sadfield]

Hard to say @matt76. The oak I use was originally from a Rum Barrel, which I used to flavour a couple of stouts before using them in bretty Stock Ales. I'd be cautious using new wood for long periods. Then there's the interplay between wood and Brett, which actually feeds on the wood, adding flavour to the beer. So, think it's contributing to the aged character, although not necessarily in an overtly woody way.

 

[Leon103]

Nice, I had some of the malt miller barrel chunks.
The beer turned out awful so rather than risk using them again they went in the BBQ
I've just bought the black swan drilled things from MM.
Probably a bit of a rip off but going to give em a go. There a lot smaller than I thought.
View attachment 38989

What the hell is that and what does it do

 

[JFB]

What the hell is that and what does it do

A toasted bit of wood with holes
They do a whole load of wood types.
The holes are for better contact?
Apparently 6 weeks for five gallons?
Think there under the flavour section on Maltmiller site. Check em out

 

[BeerCat]

Hi all, hopefully this is the right place to ask...

I've been brewing now for just over 2 years - I'm sure I've seen many of you about the forum in that time...

To date it's been mainly IPAs, bitters, porters and lagers - I do 10L batches and bottle all my beers, no kegs. But I'm interested in expanding my repertoire and experimenting a bit more. But where do I start?

- I've recently made my first kettle sour - I've had a few sour craft beers, I like them and this is something I'd like to do more of.
- I've also tried a few Belgian beers recently which have opened my eyes to wider possibilities of brewing with brettanomyces (e.g. Orval) and sour beers (e.g. Rodenbach Grand Cru).

N.B. I have no expectation at all to try to clone these Belgian beers! More just to take them as inspiration to go a bit further off piste, experiment and see what happens.

So where to start?
- Is it simply a case of trawling through Milk the Funk?
- James Spencer of Basic Brewing recently made a Golden Ale spiked at bottling with Brett. Could that be an area worth exploring?
- I'm interested in biotransformation of hops - in his book, Josh Weikert points to some Brett strains (among others) as having such properties. Could brett work with more hop forward beers?
- Historically I believe Porters were aged in barrels which we now know contained brettanomyces (or was it lactobacillus? It's been a couple of months since I was reading about it!). Is it worth trying this with my existing porter recipes for example?
- What else to try with regard to sour beers?

Any suggestions would be welcome - I'm in no hurry, if nothing else the last 2 years have taught me to be patient! (Which is just as well if what I've read about aging with brett is anything to go by!)

Cheers,

Matt

Try making one of these. from Sour beer - Brewing Forward wiki
They can be bottled in under a month and have lots of brett flavour. Its an easy method just takes a bit of time to prepare the various starters in advance.
If you just add brett at bottling you may create bottle bombs. The above method hits final gravity really fast so its stable to package. I brew these so i have something to drink while i wait for the long term beers.
You could also try souring post fermentation then oaking and dry hopping. You just need a lacto starter, again info is in above link.

 

[Leon103]

A toasted bit of wood with holes
They do a whole load of wood types.
The holes are for better contact?
Apparently 6 weeks for five gallons?
Think there under the flavour section on Maltmiller site. Check em out

It looks like a brand new piece of wood.

 

[JFB]

It looks like a brand new piece of wood.

Yep and I paid a fiver for it

 

[alefric LeHendz]

I'm planning to brew a dark lichtenhainer inspired beer tomorrow, using Philly sour and was wondering if the dregs from 1-2 bottles of boon/timmermans pure gueze pitched at the same time into a 1 gallon batch are likely to have an effect?

 

[samale]

I have around 23 litres of Brett Saison aged now for 4 months using wlp670 farmhouse yeast. Could I split this and dry hop half with maybe Sorachi ace hops and lemon zest. Or should I leave it alone and enjoy it for what it is.

 

[BeerCat]

Sour pale. WLP644 with lacto added after 72 hours. 80g el dorado dry hop and 25g of oak chips. 4.75% ABV, very sour.

 

[Sadfield]

I have around 23 litres of Brett Saison aged now for 4 months using wlp670 farmhouse yeast. Could I split this and dry hop half with maybe Sorachi ace hops and lemon zest. Or should I leave it alone and enjoy it for what it is.

Yes, to putting Sorachi Ace in anything. WLP670 is great, I need to use it again sometime.

 

[samale]

So I split my Brett Saison
6 litres bottled original
6 litres dry hopped with 20g Amarillo and the peel of 1 orange
The rest I added 400g of frozen cranberries heated and roughed up

Looking forward to seeing how they turn out

 

[Zephyr259]

Finally bottled by oud bruin and golden sours from late 2018, turns our my caution of their high FGs was deserved as after adding some sugar to get them back to a predictable base CO2 they'd both attenuated more. From memory the oud bruin was at 1.008 and was bottled at 1.006, the golden went from 1.010 to 1.003! Both got some priming sugar and half a sachet of CML sparkling wine yeast to help it along. Will try some in about a month's time to see what's up. But the both tasted great at botting so I'm pretty hopeful.

 

[JFB]

Talking of oud bruin. I just started a mixed ferm brown ale last week.
I'm never sure weather I enjoy or am annoyed about the length we need to brew these beers.
Right now it's painful, but when I get to sample the beer in over a year's time hopefully there will be grate satisfaction.
Ive read in China they brew 100 year soy sauce for the next generation in the family.
Now that's flipping next level!!

 

[BeerCat]

I just tasted one of my red sours about 8 months old and its really bland. Added some oak and its started fermenting again even at 10c so i redosed with brett and some bugs. I just don't seem to get much souring from the roeselare blend. Making a much tastier and sour beer just using brett and lacto in a few months. Sour batch kidz sours faster as well from what i can tell.

Below is a 100% brett red sour. As i remember it finished in about a month but wasn't kegged for another 2. This is something i could have on tap all the time. I like to have a glass of this with another beer.

This is some of my brett and bug collection. Its getting a bit out of hand and i have run out of bottles to culture anything else in. Planning on starting a solera in the near future so any advice welcome.

 

[JFB]

Few updates on the bug beers..
First off a mate was moving house and had some unwanted demijohns in his garden.
After a good scrub I've now room for some mini projects and am planning of filling the odd one up when kegging clean beers.
First the other week was was my punk clone that I've added my Brett Saison dregs and @samale winter Saison dregs
Then the misses informed me that aging beers under the kitchen was not really on
So I've had to relocate them to the pantry.
In doing so I've accidentally knocked the rubber bung into the carboy!
Nothing I can really do? It's only two months old, so I'm a little bumbed and really hope I don't get a rubber flavour

 

[BeerCat]

@JFB I have done that before. I racked it then got the bung out with a coathanger whilst holding i upside down.
Good to have some new demijohns, you can never have enough if you can find anywhere to put them.
Has anyone successfully harvested dupont yeast from the bottle.

 

[alefric LeHendz]

Bottled my smoked sour made with Philly Sour and gueze dregs. Looking forward to seeing it develop.

 

[Sadfield]

I just tasted one of my red sours about 8 months old and its really bland. Added some oak and its started fermenting again even at 10c so i redosed with brett and some bugs. I just don't seem to get much souring from the roeselare blend. Making a much tastier and sour beer just using brett and lacto in a few months. Sour batch kidz sours faster as well from what i can tell.

Wyeast do say it needs 18 months for a full flavour profile and acidity to develop, in their product description.

 

[JFB]

Bottled my smoked sour made with Philly Sour and gueze dregs. Looking forward to seeing it develop.

I just brewed my second Philly sour. The first one a low abv Berliner turned out ace.
This one a near 6 percent with lots of ibu's has nothing guess I shouldn't of been so tight and added two packs instead of one.
How's yours going?

 

[JFB]

So this week I'm finally getting around to a project I've been meaning to do for a while. Brew a low ibu Berliner and fermenting with my sourdough starter culture.
Should I add Brett dregs or go purist and see what the sourdough produces?
Hoping for a quick four month turn around