Recent content by fivepoundpossum

don't worry about the pellicle. they only form in the presence of oxygen and sometimes not at all and most importantly, they are are not the only indicator that brett's doing its thing. wait three months after pitching the brett and taste/check gravity; that's usually when the brett flavor...

i really like using dregs for souring. depending on how many ibu's you had in the recipe, you may find that the beer ends up being more brett-forward than acidic. the one drawback, however, is that you never know what you're gonna get as an end product, which may also be a positive thing...

thanks, sweetcell. i probably should have added the convertase just to my control batch, but i wanted to see what the brett would do to a beer completely fermented out with the wine yeast (turns out, weird--partially pleasant but also fusely and kind of gross). i'll let it sit for another few...

Three months ago, I made a beer with a flanders red-esque grain bill, used Convertase AG to break down the maltose and maltotriose and fermented it with a red wine yeast. One day into the fermentation (it was 1.020 from 1.047 or so), I added a slug of my Brett L culture. Now, it's at 1.000, has...

cadrian, in general, i think this recipe looks good. i've used amarillo in a brett saison before and it came out nicely. from the looks of it, if this is in fact for a five gallon batch, it seems you're going for a relatively high abv. if it were me, i'd scale back on the grist. too much alcohol...

give it time. three months is a good indication of when to first taste it, but the funk will only increase with time. in my experience (though, of course, it depends on the strains used), brett/sacc mixed fermentations start getting fruity by 3-4 months and only start to develop the horsey...

i agree with dantheman. i've had the best luck with biodiversity--more bugs, more complexity. that is, i collect the dregs of multiple sours/wilds/clean belgians (for the esters) in a quart jar. when it's full, i pitch the jar along with a pack of saison yeast into 5-6 gal of unfermented wort...

i've got a sour red sason that has both honey and d90 in it. it's still a month or two from completion, but the flavor of the syrup has remained so far. so i say go for it!

i've had great results going the "bug jar" route. as many have said, more bugs, more complexity. personally, my favorite type of beer to make is a sour/funky saison. what i do is save the dregs of any funky/sour beers i drink in a quart jar. when it's full, i pitch a pkg of saison sacc yeast...

me too! i like the direction all this interest in demystifying brett is going in. cheers!

thanks, all. this is all very much along with my own experience and thought. statseeker, i also like to use 3724 as the primary and then hit it with brett, though i've usually waited until full attenuation of the sacc. do you find you get more, less, or the same brett character if you give it a...

I'm curious to hear about people's experiences with Brett in secondary fermentation (after sacc has done its thing) vs. mixed primary fermentation. Do they truly produce different results? If so, what are they? Cheers!

yeah, if you use the wine yeast, you'll need to add the convertase ag 300 enzyme to convert the maltose and maltotriose to glucose. and, as someone said, most wine yeast will kill saccharomyces strains, which are important for those brett-precursors you need for the funk. i would say, think...

what does it taste like? that should give you some indication of what you should do with it. i like the solera idea. also, it might be good blended with a young sour (berliner-type) or a clean saison for added complexity. i wish i just found a lost brett carboy!

good luck and keep us posted!