Can Brett Process Fusel Alcohol?

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senegalego

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Hello All,

I am intrigued about one thing: Can Brett process fusel alcohols?

I have reserched a little bit (sorry if there is already a topic on this, I was not able to find it) and the answers seem to be inconclusive and discrepant. Can anyone reccomend me some reading or provide some material on that?

The background story is: I was stupid enough to try to brew two saisons in the Spanish summer and, obviously, these 40 liters are packed with fusel alcohols.

I have just started experimenting with Brett and I got around 8 liters from one of the batches and pitched dregs from a Cantilion's Lou Pepe. The result is very interesting, while in the original saison batch there is lots of fusels, I did not notice any trace of fusel alcohols in the 8 liters which I pitched Brett dregs. I am guessing it is because of the brett.

Anyone with a similar experience?

Thanks!

Cheers from Barcelona.
 
hola barcelona! interesting question... i don't have any answers, just more questions.

what saison yeast did you use that created fusels in the heat?!? i've read about people fermenting their saisons at 95*F (35*C) with no fusels...

that Cantillon will have more than just brett, there will be bacteria too. and one bottle's dregs into 40 L (10.5 gal) isn't a lot... did you age it a long time with the dregs?
 
Hello sweetcell,

I have not used brett in all the 40L (10.5 galons), I used Cantilion dregs with just 8L (2.11 galons), it was around 3oz worth of dregs.

As per the yeast, I have used BelleSaison by Danstar and the temperature inside my house was something around 28-30ºC (68-86ºF), but I guess the temperature inside the fermentor went beyond that safe range.

I have read somewhere that the temperature during active fermentation can be much higher than the room temperature, that's why I am guessing fusels, plus the beer smells and tastes like rubbing alcohol, LOL.

The beer with brett has been aging for around 2 months now and I cannot taste/smell fusels. I am guessing the Brett took care of it. I will wait another 2 or 3 months to drink another sample and see if my guessing is correct :)

Has anyone had the same experience?
 
Brett will consume esters and phenols for certain. I dont see why it couldn't rearrange fusels. Then again it could simply be reducing the overly phenolic and estery character. I used to dose Belgian yeast fermented beers in champagne bottles with Brett and no priming sugars. Then I would bottle the rest normally with priming sugar. The difference was obvious and pretty dramatic. Unfortunately I do not believe there is much research on brett's ability to transform saccharomyces fermentation byproducts. There is some but not much and it takes some searching to find the papers, which you are only likely to end up with the abstract.
 
Thanks for the input, smokinghole

I belive that brett can process fusels, there is only one way ok knowing it.

I have already performed the test and I will wait for now. I will be posting the results here in 3 or 4 months.

Thanks!
 
I could be wrong, but I think I've read something about Brett and fusels. Message Oldsock, he might be able to weigh in. I searched his site, but didn't see any reference unfortunately.
 
Also, the only problem I can see with your experiment is that fusels can mellow with time, so it'll be hard to tell whether it's the brett having an effect, or simply the mellowing of age.
 
I'm sure that Brett produces alcohols other than ethanol. It may be that some strains produce fewer fusels than certain Sacch strains at a given temperature. Brett does have a tendency to clean up fermentation by brewer’s yeast to a certain extent. It may be producing esters with some of the higher alcohols, while splitting other esters and changing phenols.

Hot fermentation is usually fine for saisons, but you still have to take into account pitching temperature, pitching rate, etc.
 
I'm sure that Brett produces alcohols other than ethanol. It may be that some strains produce fewer fusels than certain Sacch strains at a given temperature. Brett does have a tendency to clean up fermentation by brewer’s yeast to a certain extent. It may be producing esters with some of the higher alcohols, while splitting other esters and changing phenols.

Hot fermentation is usually fine for saisons, but you still have to take into account pitching temperature, pitching rate, etc.

That's what I was thinking of. So if I understand you right, it is possible for Brett to create esters from alcohol, correct?
 
I'm sure that Brett produces alcohols other than ethanol. It may be that some strains produce fewer fusels than certain Sacch strains at a given temperature. Brett does have a tendency to clean up fermentation by brewer’s yeast to a certain extent. It may be producing esters with some of the higher alcohols, while splitting other esters and changing phenols.

Hot fermentation is usually fine for saisons, but you still have to take into account pitching temperature, pitching rate, etc.

This was my thought too. For example, Brett can form ethyl lactate from ethanol and lactic acid. I'm not a biochemist, but it seems intuitive that there may be other esters formed from other types of alcohols.

For what it is worth, I had a similar experience with Yeast Bay's Wallonion combined with YB's Belgian Brett blend in secondary. The Wallonion on it's own was very good, no fusels, but after two months on the Belgian Brett blend it had some hash fusels and phenolics. It was really gross. Fast forward two months again, and it's tasting fruity and delicious. This is purely anecdotal of course, and I can't even be sure I was tasting fusels for sure (it sure seemed like it, as a fairly experienced taster). So the Brett produced some nasty off flavors that tasted like higher alcohols to me, but cleaned them up again apparently.
 
Also, the only problem I can see with your experiment is that fusels can mellow with time, so it'll be hard to tell whether it's the brett having an effect, or simply the mellowing of age.

Hello TheZymurgist,

That's a good input. I will have a control group (beer with fusels and no brett) set to make this test more scientifical :)

Thanks!
 
Hello All

It is nice to have so many especialists replying to this thread. :)

Just a quick update:

I have checked on the 2.5 Gals with dregs from Cantillion (3 months now) and it still has a lot of fusels on the nose, but almost nothing in the taste (it tastes terrible, btw). The control bottles still have lots of fusels in the nose and in the taste.

I am inclined to belive that bretta does have influence in reducing fusels, but not at an extent of 'saving' my beer. I will wait another 3 months to see if anything changes.

Thanks for contributing to this thread. If anyone out there has a similar experience, please share with us.

Cheers.
 
Just an update after years without logging in: brett did help a lot by breaking up some fusel alcohol, but it is no miracle. There was still some left to the beer.

Cheers!
 
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