The Mixed Fermentation Thread

[alefric LeHendz]

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?

I've not cracked this open yet, but at bottling it there was plenty going on. I'm not sure how much the dregs will make it difficult to evaluate the Philly sour, probably shouldn't have co-pitched on the first try!

 

[JFB]

Yesterday I finally got my sourdough Berliner on the go
Made a brew of Pilsner and wheat to 1035. Added 2.8 ibu's of Ceila.
There's a few bits on the web about using sourdough starters but none I could find went into the detail I'd of liked.
So back if a gag packet pitching rate of 150g of starter. Which is enough yeast to bake three loaves bread.
Fermenting at 20c. It's bubbling away nicely, no freight train but nothing to be concerned of.
Ive got a 18l glass fermenter for the bulk to age and the a demijons worth to add some Brett.
Not idea on time. Guessing three months as it should be mainly lacto and saccharomyces??

 

[samale]

I have made a couple of Brett Saison. Head retention seems to be a problem. Carbonation is fine but the head seems to fizz out to a thin line on the glass.
Anyone have any suggestions

 

[Sadfield]

Just saccharomyces and Brett @samale or is there lactobacillus in there. I've only heard of lacto affecting head retention, although the brett may consume any remaining dextins. My only suggestion would be to add wheat to boost the protein content.

 

[JFB]

I have made a couple of Brett Saison. Head retention seems to be a problem. Carbonation is fine but the head seems to fizz out to a thin line on the glass.
Anyone have any suggestions

I have this happen fairly often. Also had it on commercial Brett beers.
Sadly no tips for the remedy.
Just take the photos quick

 

[samale]

Just saccharomyces and Brett @samale or is there lactobacillus in there. I've only heard of lacto affecting head retention, although the brett may consume any remaining dextins. My only suggestion would be to add wheat to boost the protein content.

I used WLP 670. I will have a look at upping the wheat content

 

[Ajhutch]

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?

I’ve done a philly sour IPA and I’m actually really pleased with it. It soured quickly but attenuated slowly, it was 3 weeks before I dry hopped then cold crashed. Then things went south for some time and the “cold crash” turned into something more like lagering, it was 6 weeks before I bottled. It’s nicely tart and there’s plenty of fruitiness. I think the good thing is that the tartness from the yeast probably covers for some loss of hop flavour over the time. A slightly awkward yeast to use but I’m really happy with the outcome so will use again.

 

[Ajhutch]

I made what will be a Brett Dark Saison today, inspired by the Mad Fermentationist recipes and the brews @samale has done. It was my first brew day in months and enjoyed it immensely.

15 litres at 1.064, 32 calculated IBUs

2kg Munich
2kg Maris Otter
250g special B
100g carafa special II

15g First Gold at 60mins
15g First Gold at 15mins
15g First Gold at flameout
Zest of 3 blood oranges at flameout

350g orange blossom honey added to the FV

Fermenting with CML Saison yeast and culturing up dregs of a bottle of Wicked Weed Brettabolic 2017 for secondary.

 

[samale]

I made what will be a Brett Dark Saison today, inspired by the Mad Fermentationist recipes and the brews @samale has done. It was my first brew day in months and enjoyed it immensely.

15 litres at 1.064, 32 calculated IBUs

2kg Munich
2kg Maris Otter
250g special B
100g carafa special II

15g First Gold at 60mins
15g First Gold at 15mins
15g First Gold at flameout
Zest of 3 blood oranges at flameout

350g orange blossom honey added to the FV

Fermenting with CML Saison yeast and culturing up dregs of a bottle of Wicked Weed Brettabolic 2017 for secondary.

I still have a bottle with your name on it. I shared it with @JFB it's definitely a nice drop. Scored well in the monthly competition, the only issue was head retention. If I get a chance I will post it out next week sometime

 

[JFB]

I still have a bottle with your name on it. I shared it with @JFB it's definitely a nice drop. Scored well in the monthly competition, the only issue was head retention. If I get a chance I will post it out next week sometime

More than a nice drop bud, it really was epic
Last night I had yet another commercial mixed fermentation beer that was just lame tbh. I think they must package them super early or something??
I've got a few beers for you to try I'll send em over with my Belgium beer entry

 

[matt76]

I’ve done a philly sour IPA and I’m actually really pleased with it. It soured quickly but attenuated slowly, it was 3 weeks before I dry hopped then cold crashed. Then things went south for some time and the “cold crash” turned into something more like lagering, it was 6 weeks before I bottled. It’s nicely tart and there’s plenty of fruitiness. I think the good thing is that the tartness from the yeast probably covers for some loss of hop flavour over the time. A slightly awkward yeast to use but I’m really happy with the outcome so will use again.

Hey @Ajhutch , do you have a recipe somewhere for this sour IPA?

I did a blueberry kettle sour recently which was quite good but it's be interested to try making something like a sour IPA.

I would kettle sour again simply as I still have some lactobacillus leftover from last time. But by coincidence I was listening yesterday to a Brü Lab podcast (Ep.003) interviewing the guy whose research team isolated the Philly Sour strain.

 

[JFB]

Quick update on sourdough beer.
Its fermented down down to 1004.
Has a lovely clean slightly tart taste.
I'm going to age for 3 months incase there's some other bugs at bay.
Also filled a demijon that I've added Brett dregs to

 

[samale]

I spilt my last Saison 3 ways. I am looking to bottle now. The version with orange peel and Amarillo is in the bottling bucket. It's has a layer of white Brett on top. I am looking to add priming sugar.
Should I skim or just leave it

 

[JFB]

I spilt my last Saison 3 ways. I am looking to bottle now. The version with orange peel and Amarillo is in the bottling bucket. It's has a layer of white Brett on top. I am looking to add priming sugar.
Should I skim or just leave it

I've always left, it does look very unappealing though
I'm sure there's no harm in skimming.

 

[samale]

Bottled the orange peel and Amarillo Brett Saison. Transferred the cranberry version to the bottling bucket. I will bottle this up tomorrow.
@JFB I will be posting these out to you. Anyone interested to try them drop me a message.

 

[matt76]

Here's a question or two for you crazy mixed fermentations folks - I know enough about day to day brewing with saccharomyces strains, but I need some guidance with my plans for aging with brettanomyces:

I've mentioned this before but I'm planning in the next few weeks to make another batch of my London Porter, fermented with an English ale strain. Now since I only brew smaller batches this will only be around 10-12L total.

Once it has finished I plan to bottle about half as normal, then transfer the remainder to a 4.5-5.0L-ish glass carboy I've acquired to age for 6 months (is that about right?) or so with some WLP645 brettanomyces claussenii, taking inspiration from Victorian or earlier Porters.

(I've only got the one 5L-ish glass carboy - if I had a second or a bigger one then I'd happily age the lot!)

First question - My plan is to wake up the brett in a starter and just be lazy and chuck the whole test tube in. But I'm mindful that White Labs probably package it on the basis it's enough for 20L or so - if I'm only fermenting 5L I'm over-pitching. Should I get especially worried/excited about pitch rates on this scale with brettanomyces?

Second question - Should I expect to get a "yeast cake" from brett, like we do with saccaromyces, that I can harvest and re-pitch in the future? I.e. all being well, in 6 months time (long way off!) can I just dump another batch of porter onto some/all of the yeast cake like I might do with saccharomyces?

Third question - What can I expect to see from a brett fermentation? Specifically, do I need to leave lots of headspace in the carboy for a krausen or can I fill it near the brim and expect it to do more or les bu%%er all for 6 months, apart from maybe the odd bubble and maybe grow a pellicle?

Thanks in advance,

Matt

 

[matt76]

Here's a question or two for you crazy mixed fermentations folks - I know enough about day to day brewing with saccharomyces strains, but I need some guidance with my plans for aging with brettanomyces:

I've mentioned this before but I'm planning in the next few weeks to make another batch of my London Porter, fermented with an English ale strain. Now since I only brew smaller batches this will only be around 10-12L total.

Once it has finished I plan to bottle about half as normal, then transfer the remainder to a 4.5-5.0L-ish glass carboy I've acquired to age for 6 months (is that about right?) or so with some WLP645 brettanomyces claussenii, taking inspiration from Victorian or earlier Porters.

(I've only got the one 5L-ish glass carboy - if I had a second or a bigger one then I'd happily age the lot!)

First question - My plan is to wake up the brett in a starter and just be lazy and chuck the whole test tube in. But I'm mindful that White Labs probably package it on the basis it's enough for 20L or so - if I'm only fermenting 5L I'm over-pitching. Should I get especially worried/excited about pitch rates on this scale with brettanomyces?

Second question - Should I expect to get a "yeast cake" from brett, like we do with saccaromyces, that I can harvest and re-pitch in the future? I.e. all being well, in 6 months time (long way off!) can I just dump another batch of porter onto some/all of the yeast cake like I might do with saccharomyces?

Third question - What can I expect to see from a brett fermentation? Specifically, do I need to leave lots of headspace in the carboy for a krausen or can I fill it near the brim and expect it to do more or les bu%%er all for 6 months, apart from maybe the odd bubble and maybe grow a pellicle?

Thanks in advance,

Matt

Well this is interesting - in an effort to answer some of my own questions I've been googling and ended up reading some of the comments on The Mad Fermentationist:

I'm confident my plastic buckets seal very well so maybe I can get away with aging an entire 10L batch afterall - I would just transfer to a fresh FV to get the beer if the saccharomyces yeast cake and then pitch my brettanomyces.

 

[pilgrimhudd]

There's some nice sounding recipes on that site.

 

[Ajhutch]

My “ethos” on Brett is that I trust it to clean up oxygen where I get a bit sloppy with racking etc, but I don’t go out of my way to introduce it. So I think your original DJ plan is a good one. @Sadfield has definitely done some ageing of British style ales with Brett C so hopefully he can chip in

 

[Sadfield]

Here's a question or two for you crazy mixed fermentations folks - I know enough about day to day brewing with saccharomyces strains, but I need some guidance with my plans for aging with brettanomyces:

I've mentioned this before but I'm planning in the next few weeks to make another batch of my London Porter, fermented with an English ale strain. Now since I only brew smaller batches this will only be around 10-12L total.

Once it has finished I plan to bottle about half as normal, then transfer the remainder to a 4.5-5.0L-ish glass carboy I've acquired to age for 6 months (is that about right?) or so with some WLP645 brettanomyces claussenii, taking inspiration from Victorian or earlier Porters.

(I've only got the one 5L-ish glass carboy - if I had a second or a bigger one then I'd happily age the lot!)

First question - My plan is to wake up the brett in a starter and just be lazy and chuck the whole test tube in. But I'm mindful that White Labs probably package it on the basis it's enough for 20L or so - if I'm only fermenting 5L I'm over-pitching. Should I get especially worried/excited about pitch rates on this scale with brettanomyces?

Second question - Should I expect to get a "yeast cake" from brett, like we do with saccaromyces, that I can harvest and re-pitch in the future? I.e. all being well, in 6 months time (long way off!) can I just dump another batch of porter onto some/all of the yeast cake like I might do with saccharomyces?

Third question - What can I expect to see from a brett fermentation? Specifically, do I need to leave lots of headspace in the carboy for a krausen or can I fill it near the brim and expect it to do more or les bu%%er all for 6 months, apart from maybe the odd bubble and maybe grow a pellicle?

Thanks in advance,

Matt

I always refer back to this line.

For secondary fermentations, Brett will eventually complete its task whether you pitch 1,000,000 or 100 cells per mL.

https://byo.com/article/all-about-brett/
Whether you add a small amount from the vial and save the rest, or pitch it all in and use the yeast cake, it'll likely return the same result. It's why Brett is so 'successful' as a contaminant in clean beer, a small amount lurking in a tap, in the wood of a barrel, etc will in time ruin a batch, and continue to do so until removed. Conversely, if we want a source of Brett to replicate the contamination in historic aged beers, all we need is a little bit of Brett, be it a splash from a vial, dregs from a bottle, a bit of trub or some wood passed from batch to batch. A little goes a very long way.

I secondary in corny kegs, so can't see what's going on, but headspace hasn't been an issue.