Using brett

[Sadfield]

My bottles of Orval arrived today, very happy with delivery!

Does anyone know whether the dregs of one bottle will be enough to innoculate a gallon of my wort / beer (whichever it is!)?

One will be plenty.

From http://www.milkthefunk.com

If pitched into a beer that has already been fermented by Saccharomyces or if co-pitched with Saccharomyces, a wider range of flavors including the funkier flavors can be produced by changing some of the flavor compounds produced during the Saccharomyces fermentation into other flavor compounds (see the Brettanomyces Metabolism section above), although Brettanomyces can also produce funky phenols on its own (de novo) without phenolic precursors produced from Saccharomyces. A small cell count of Brettanomyces is plenty for creating these flavors if pitched after and co-pitched with Saccharomyces, and normally a starter is not necessary unless pitching Brettanomyces as the primary fermenter. See the Mixed Fermentation, Brettanomyces and Saccharomyces Co-fermentation, and Brettanomyces secondary fermentation experiment pages for more information on using Brettanomyces in secondary.

 

[Oneflewover]

One will be plenty.

From http://www.milkthefunk.com

Many thanks. Interesting reading. Can't say I understood it all, but I'm very happy to take your word that one bottle worth of dregs will do it

 

[Oneflewover]

Well i drank a bottle of Orval last night - now that is a beer I appreciate! Pitched the dregs into one of the demijohns, so now the waiting commences. I'll be brewing a saison soon so will use some of the wy3711 starter in another gallon then

 

[strange-steve]

Well i drank a bottle of Orval last night - now that is a beer I appreciate! Pitched the dregs into one of the demijohns, so now the waiting commences. I'll be brewing a saison soon so will use some of the wy3711 starter in another gallon then

It's a beautiful beer, one of my faves. I'm planning another clone brew soon

 

[Oneflewover]

Right, for anyone who is remotely interested......
I've innoculated one gallon with Orval dregs, one gallon with wy3711 (diastaticus), and I've got one gallon as is (it's actually pretty good with a lively carbonation), all ageing in secondary.

 

[strange-steve]

It'll be interesting to see how this turns out, I love a good experiment

 

[Oneflewover]

It'll be a while before I can report back I suspect, particularly re the bretted gallon.

Actually it'll be fun to try a bottle of each side by side to compare

 

[Oneflewover]

I had a little snifter of both the bretted and the wy3711 versions tonight (I left no headroom and when fermentation restarted it started to climb up the airlock). Very different already, and the funk is clearly evident in the bretted one whilst the other is drying out nicely. Really enjoying this experiment so far....