Saison already at 1.002. Should I bother to add brett?

Just moved a saison over to secondary to age a bit and the gravity was at 1.002. I was thinking of adding some dregs from a few bottles of Goose Island Sofie to hopefully get some brett character. With the gravity already so low, should I even bother? Will I get anything from the brett at this point?

Just curious, what strain of saison yeast did you use? I don't like to add dregs, but I feel like the brett would still munch on stuff. I've heard they eat sugar in the wood of barrels and such. Grizzly little dudes.

You could add a little sugar during secondary with the Brett. Doing so will give the Brett a little extra to munch on, allowing you to get more Brett character.

Brett develops character in beer from more than metabolism of sugar so I don't think you should not add it just because your gravity readings are very low. Much of what we perceive as "Brett character" is from modification of esters and phenols rather than from fermentation of sugar.

Bottom line is go ahead and add it and see what happens. You'll be surprised.

Thundercougarfalconbird said:

Just curious, what strain of saison yeast did you use?

Click to expand...

The Dupont strain.

barrooze said:

You could add a little sugar during secondary with the Brett. Doing so will give the Brett a little extra to munch on, allowing you to get more Brett character.

Click to expand...

I would add some sugar but the beer is already pushing 9% ABV. I guess I'll just add the dregs and see what happens. Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

nberk said:

Brett develops character in beer from more than metabolism of sugar so I don't think you should not add it just because your gravity readings are very low. Much of what we perceive as "Brett character" is from modification of esters and phenols rather than from fermentation of sugar.

Bottom line is go ahead and add it and see what happens. You'll be surprised.

Click to expand...

This is a great point. I'd add the dregs without adding any additional fermentables.

Also, sugar would more than likely just be consumed by the saison yeast. If you were to add fermetables, maltodextrin might be a better option since it can only be metabolized by brett.

Brett doesn't just utilize sugars or carbohydrates. They will use and change the ester/phenol character of the beer over time too. I've dosed bottles with brett and left others normal. The brett dosed bottles had less of a estery flavor especially at six months. I never really got much of a brett flavor in the beer I did that with though. So you may not get the horsey brett flavor, but it will change the beer.

smokinghole said:

I never really got much of a brett flavor in the beer I did that with though. So you may not get the horsey brett flavor, but it will change the beer.

Click to expand...

I believe the brewer at Heretic stated that he gets the horsey Brett character when adding sugars with the Brett, hence my suggestion. If you don't want that character, I wouldn't bother adding it at this point. You could do as SH says and add Brett to some of the batch so you can see the difference it makes.