Does anyone know what would happen?

I am fairly new to brewing with less than 10 brews under my belt so far, and I have an interesting question. Would it be possible to carbonate bottles by adding Brett Brux instead of priming sugar?

Would this cause bottle bombs? Would it impart any flavor at all?

I am doing a stout and I want to get the partial wild flavor like what Guinness does, but I don't trust myself yet for pasteurizing a brett portion, and I don't want too much brett taste, just a small edge.

If the consensus is that the bottles will not explode (assuming fully fermented down to a low final gravity), I will proceed and let people know what happens. I just don't want to waste several gallons of brew, nor the $15 on just a small number of bottles.

I've thought of doing this also, because I only have one fermenter and can't afford to let any one beer take up more than a month or so in there. I'm no expert, but the impression I've gotten is that there is an element of risk in this. Since Brett can eat more complex sugars than Sacc (that is, of course, while it will still carbonate), you can't really predict what the FG of the bottles will end up being and therefore you can't predict the carbonation. You may get bottle bombs. I've also read that Brett is not as easily stopped by cold temperatures as Sacc, and so if you do get bottle bombs they may not be effectively rescued by popping the survivors in the fridge. Lastly, I don't think you could predict how long carbonation should take for this method and so could not rely on the usual 2-3 weeks to try to preempt any bottle bombs.

As for whether this would contribute Brett character, I think there are two factors to consider: 1) some of the Brett character is apparently from the production of ethyl lactate, which requires some lactic acid (which your beer will not have, I presume) and 2) carbonation (with Sacc) only requires the fermentation of about 3 gravity points.

In conclusion, I'd probably only try this with a beer that is already very dry, and I'd be opening a bottle each week to see how things were coming along. In the end, I'd be drinking a lot of undercarbonated beer, I'm sure, but I think this is an idea that really demands some testing, and sacrifices would be required.

_Brettanomyces_ is more attenuative than normal brewers yeast, but works more slowly. By adding it at bottling, you will likely see carbonation form first due to the residual brewers yeast. Then, the Brett should take over and slowly increase the carbonation levels.
Given that it will be working on a small amount of sugar, I doubt you will get much _Brett_ character. But, you will likely eventually get very fizzy beers (with the possibility of bottles bursting depending on how much residual carbohydrates are in your beer).

Chris Colby
Editor
beerandwinejournal.com

Thank you both for your replies. I will go ahead and do this with a couple gallons of the stout. I will be making 8ish gallons, so losing a couple won't be devastating, and two gallons would be a decent sample size.

I will report back in a couple months to let you all know what happens. I will put the bottles in a box and put that box in a garbage bag (and that inside of a tub to be REALLY sure). Worst case, I pitch that segment.

As far as the flavor, I am not really going for sour with this. I want the brett barn taste as just a subtle note. Having started a sour and sampling before the lactobaccilus started kicking up, my main fear would be the funk being too strong.

My overall plan is to make a brett starter, only pitch a bit of it then use the rest of the starter for something else. Wish me luck!

Okay here's what you do.

Take a volume of beer that's at least 2x if not 4x your hydrometer cylinder volume (this give you multiple test volumes). Then add the brett culture you plan on using and keep it warm. This will allow your smallish satellite volume to attenuate faster than if you bottled the beer. When I say keep it warm I'm talking between 80F and 85F which is about ideal temp for optimal yeast growth. This will make it easier for the brett to produce the necessary enzymes that it uses to hydrolyze the sugars it's capable of using to get glucose molecules. After 6-8 weeks you should be pretty close to fully attenuated (due to the heat) and you can measure the gravity. The difference in pre and post brett would be your potential residual extract if you just added brett to the bottles. This extract would be your level of carbonation contributed with out priming sugar.

I use this method to bottle some belgian beers I want to play with as well as every saison I've made the last three years. I'll typically bottle as early as I want and prime my beer based on the gravity on bottling day. I will prime with the intent of getting nearly 3.5 vol from the beer in total but maybe only 2.5 with priming sugar and allow the brett to build the remainder over a few months.

The chance of you getting fizzy beer is dependent on your residual extract. I've primed with only brett and ended up with pretty ideal carbonation. About two years ago I made an attempt at making a beer similar to Orval. I did primary fermentation dry hopped and bottled all in two weeks. I added Orval bottle yeasts two days before bottling and primed for 3.0ish volumes with dextrose. The gravity at bottling was 1.009 and last time I checked the gravity about 18 months after bottling it was at 1.0045. So the brett attenuated an additional 4.5 gravity points in the bottle but I think that happened with in 8 months. So had I not primed it would have been completely normal carbonation but I primed for 3.0 volumes with dextrose first so it's a very effervescent beer to say the least, just like Orval. I had also made a quad and simply added brett in the bottle to carbonate. It got pretty funky pretty fast, but the carb was nice and appropriate.

So people that don't have experience with this tactic will warn you of bottle bombs. Bottle bombs and overcarbed beer is totally up to you, its not a mystery and brett does stop fermenting eventually. The safest method is a sort of forced/accelerated satellite fermentation but you can of course roll the dice and use whatever method you want.

Thanks, Smokinghole. It actually is rather nice seeing that I am not the first one to have thought of this. It sounds like what you have experienced is what I was thinking would happen: the Brett would eat the remaining carbs and achieve a relatively appropriate carbonation without priming sugar (and be very carb'ed with priming sugar). Since it's a stout, I will roll the dice, pitch some brett at bottling time, then start testing the carbonation after a week or two.

Now, do you personally use a separate bottling bucket for your Brett brews or is that more a precaution when using Lacto bugs? My impression of Brett is that it really is just another yeast, but it acts slower and is able to eat more complex sugar. This kind of leads me to believe that as long as I correctly clean and sanitize, I should be able to use the same equipment when using Brett or Sacch. If not I will just turn one of my extra 5 gallon buckets into a bottling bucket. That's what drills are for, right?

Like I said, I will share what my results are after this experiment. If this works out, it should prove to be a nice easy way to get that "extra stout" taste without much effort.

I used to use different bucket. Now I bottle out of 10 gal corny kegs and use th same for all beers sour it otherwise. Now granted I don't make a whole lot of saccharomyces only beers anymore but still. I am intrigued by what your doing because I am thinking of making a more standard gravity imperial stout, and will prob basically follow the old Courage IRS recipe then I will cask it and add Brett for carb after maybe 2 months with the brett. Then I can serve it on hand pump for a party sometime this year. Haven't carbed a stout with Brett only yet, did so with plenty of others. I have also made stout with Brett but let them age a long time. That is something to note. Typically at the 2-3 week mark my Brett stout has made it from 1.120ish down to 1.040 ish. Then over about 6-8 months it makes it down to 1.025ish. Thats significant attenuation, but if you are lower gravity wort you should not be anywhere near numbers like I just mentioned. Heck my Brett attenuation is about what some low gravity beers do as a whole.

smokinghole said:

Okay here's what you do.

Take a volume of beer that's at least 2x if not 4x your hydrometer cylinder volume (this give you multiple test volumes). Then add the brett culture you plan on using and keep it warm. This will allow your smallish satellite volume to attenuate faster than if you bottled the beer. When I say keep it warm I'm talking between 80F and 85F which is about ideal temp for optimal yeast growth. This will make it easier for the brett to produce the necessary enzymes that it uses to hydrolyze the sugars it's capable of using to get glucose molecules. After 6-8 weeks you should be pretty close to fully attenuated (due to the heat) and you can measure the gravity. The difference in pre and post brett would be your potential residual extract if you just added brett to the bottles. This extract would be your level of carbonation contributed with out priming sugar.

Click to expand...

This is a really good idea. Also, it's exciting to hear that this has worked for you and that some Brett character does develop.

Using that test method, it appears that the gravity change would have been too much. I used that sample as a starter to pitch into my carboys with the stout in them (since I did enjoy a small sampling of that) and am riding out the secondary with the brett in there. I will just do a normal priming sugar carbonation unless I can catch the gravity at the right time (very doubtful since I tend to not like to test the gravity by stealing with a wine thief).