Hoping it's best to post my question on this related active thread than start a new one....
I pitched Lambicus onto a new wort about a week ago and the fermenter has been at 49-52 F the whole time. There's a single layer of pea-sized clear bubbles on the surface. (It's also spiked with dregs of a few ale yeasts.)
Will this beer ferment on out (and in how long)?
Do you recommend raising temp, or adding yeast at some point?
I've never tried to do anything with Brett at that low of a temp. Most strains of Sacc won't be able to handle that, really getting into lager territory with that. The warmer Brett is, the better it does.
Another thing to consider is that when you make a starter of Brett you need to account for extra time due to 1: White labs vials contain very small amounts of brett, I think wyeast packs have higher cell counts and 2: brett grows slower. If I'm culturing up from one of my propogated tubes I give it 4 days where I'd normally give Sacc 2. Turning the hot stir plate heat up a little to get it around 75 really seems to help too.
Just read this thread and am intrigued. I've only had a few sours, so I'm a novice drinker in that category, let alone brewer. I've had a few sours at a local Belgian taphouse but don't recall the brands. Can you point me to some all Brett L commercial beers to try? I need something to brew in the summer months when my fermentation room (storage unit) is between 72-80
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(~):} Just a little Furthur (~):}
First off, all brett beers aren't sours. Brett is a component of lambics/gueze/flanders sours, but is not responsible for hardly any of the acid content in those beers.
Brett beers are dry (high attenuation) and funky, with interesting fruity like flavors popping up here and there.
The only real Brett L commercial beer I've had or even heard of is Wild Devil.
I'll keep an eye out for that beer. I do realize that about sours. I guess I should have mentioned that my only encounter with bret would have been through these sour beers. Souring the mash and lacto doesn't appeal to me at the moment, so this sounds like a worthwhile approach.
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(~):} Just a little Furthur (~):}
All the Brett strains are distinctive. From what I've heard:
C - is fruity and very mild
B - is pretty horsey and funky
L - funky and a lot of sour cherry in the nose and some in the taste
Jmo - With those temps you can do almost any Belgian beer although they will be on the warmer side.
Tapped, and darn tasty! The brett definitely lived up to its reputation of funky with plenty of sour cherry. Also refreshing! I am going to experiment with higher carbonation as I think it will benefit.
__________________ SEMPER FIDELIS ET SEMPER PARATUS Bringin' the 'pane...the propane.
saq, do you have a dedicated glass carboy (or other fermenter) for your brett beers? i've got a plastic bucket i don't care about, but would prefer to do it in one of my carboys... can glass be cleaned enough to get rid of all the brett?
__________________ primary: Schwarzbier kegged: A Lager, Irish Red, Oak Aged Dark Belgian
I have a few things dedicated to sours / brett stuff. 1 3g BB that I use for keeping bugs propogated/starter buildup/sour barrel topup, 1 6g BB for fermenting, 1 balcones 5.25g bourbon barrel, 1 serving corny and 1 aging corny. I'd like to add another barrel to sour with so I get more done at once.
I've dropped glass from my fermenting side of things completely, its such a hassle to deal with. But it will work just fine.
That being said Brettanomyces is a yeast, and not a bacteria. A proper cleaning procedure for dealing with Saccharomyces is sufficient for dealing with Brettanomyces.
Bacteria are a little tougher as they can survive pretty low pH levels which is one of the sanitizing methods of starsan. Bacteria can also get into porous things like rubber where its harder for sanitizers to get to properly, so you may want to soak longer when this stuff is involved.
Another thing that will help maximize the effectiveness of Starsan is to use distilled water which usually has a lower pH than your average rather-hard city water. A lower starting pH means a lower effective pH once you add your starsan.
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