Proper ways to use Brett?

I plan on brewing a Belgian strong pale ale soon enough and wonder how to use Brett effectively to procure the acidity and funk similiar to that of "Matilda". I know they use Brett in secondary fermentation and will do the same. Should I add some Pediococcus along with the Brett or just the Brett alone? I am trying to clone it somewhat but not exactly . . more along the line of Orval but with Brett. Awesome stuff that Matilda.

I don't know if this will help your question, but I made a Belgian Triple last year and decided to add Brett to half of the 10g I made. I pitched a vial of WLP 3112 (which is the lighter flavored strain of the 3, I believe) directly into the secondary and let it age for 3 months. I didn't have any noticeable flavor change, but the gravity did drop a slight bit. I probably should have let it age longer and/or made a starter w/ the Brett.

Hmmmmmm. Maybe your temp was too low? No more fermentables? But you did say the gravity dropped a bit more.I think a simple sugar solution should go in with the Brett for it to have something to chew, no? I'm gonna use this in conjunction with Wyeast 1214. Matilda simply uses it in secondary fermentation per the bottle labeling. I had a bomber the other night with a date of 1/29/10. . . . Sooooooo good!

No need for a starter. You get more traditional "brett" flavor when it's stressed (such as when underpitching).

Brett produces very little acidity. It does, however, do interesting things with the acids produced by lacto and pedio. Even without acid, brett will slowly chew through nearly every sugar that sacch leaves behind, which will give the impression of greater acidity; think instant kool-aid if you forgot to add the sugar. If you want Orval, you don't need acid/bacteria, just the bottle dregs.

Obligatory download link for Chad Yakobson's Brettanomyces Project PDF

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2540232/6-16-2011-NHC-Brettanomyces.pdf

Enjoy.

Oh and if you REALLY wanna go deep, check out his dissertation. It addresses pitching rates and well pretty much everything...


http://www.brettanomycesproject.com/dissertation/

Bravo my good man! That was an awesome read and gave me great info! That first pdf was good enough but I may dive in deeper . . . . Very excited!

Got any good recipes like a Matilda or a similar pale ale with some of the cara malts described? I know you do.

Pitching straight Brett after primary fermentation with a normal ale yeast isn't going to give you a lot of Brett character, according to Oldsock/Mike T on these boards (he's a Sour Guru to the extreme - madfermentationist.com). I'd add a mix of bugs and some other sugar that isn't fermentable by normal Sach yeasts, like Malto Dextrin. Brett also likes to chew on wood cellulose like in oak chips. Pitch the Brett & Bugs along with the normal ale yeast for the most bang for your buck.

Also Orval has Brett in it, along with other stuff (I think). Orval bottles are a great source of bugs if you live in an area that doesn't get a lot of other live sour culture beer.

I was thinking of trying the primary pitch after a few days of active fermentation. So for a five gallon batch where I'm looking for a bit o' funk in the nose and on the tail end like Matilda would one vial or smack pack of Brett B. mingled with 8 oz. of Dextrin do the job?

that plan sounds fine. I'd just go with the dregs from matilda & orval instead of buying a smack pack tho

ghpeel said:

Also Orval has Brett in it, along with other stuff (I think).

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nope, just brett

Sweet, thnx for the info.

Just remember to mash higher than you usually would when doing a secondary fermentation with Brett. A lot of people get no character from secondary with Brett because the Brett has nothing to eat if the mash temp is low and the highly ferment able wort was all chewed up by the saccharomyces.

My advice is mash at a low temp if conducting primary fermentation with Brett, and mash at a higher temp if conducting secondary fermentation with Brett to leave something for them to eat.

alot of the brett flavor comes from converting esters, it doesnt need much sugar to produce character

Biobrewer said:

Just remember to mash higher than you usually would when doing a secondary fermentation with Brett. A lot of people get no character from secondary with Brett because the Brett has nothing to eat if the mash temp is low and the highly ferment able wort was all chewed up by the saccharomyces.

My advice is mash at a low temp if conducting primary fermentation with Brett, and mash at a higher temp if conducting secondary fermentation with Brett to leave something for them to eat.

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That's a misconception. I and many others have gotten Brett funk with 0.0 or 0.001 gravity drop.

dwarven_stout said:

That's a misconception. I and many others have gotten Brett funk with 0.0 or 0.001 gravity drop.

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Perhaps I should have said little character has been seen when adding Brett to a dry secondary, not no character. It is more a matter of how much funk you want, and how fast you want it.

In order for Brett to convert esters and other molecules to more sensory compounds, the synthesis of esterases, decarboxylases, reductases, and a host of other enzymes is required. The synthesis of these enzymes is no small task for the cell, and it takes cells a decent amount of energy to produce them. The easiest, fastest, and most efficient way for Brett to get energy is from carbohydrates in solution. It is true that in the absence of sugar they can break down ethanol and use that as a carbon source. It simply takes longer to get energy in this fashion, and therefore longer to produce the flavor compounds of interest.

As I mentioned above and will reiterate, it is really a matter of how much character you want. Of course there will always be a little bit perceived, but that is because our threshold of detection for volatiles produced by Brett, such as 4-ethylphenol and 4-ethylguaiacol, are incredibly low as compared to the esters from which they are derived.

Just want to share my observation
i made 10gal of saison and split it in to two fermenters, one got 3711 the other 1.5L starter from orval bottle (stepped up and active)
Fermentation started at 64 and i increased it up to 78 i think. Brett finished 2 days earlier than 3711, after stable gravity for a week (3711 at 1.001 and brett at 1.009 i think) i started cold crashing but with my system the lowest i can go is 45-52F and the strange thing happend at this temp. Normally when moving from 75-58 to 50F little air gets suck up in to the carboy and you can see liquid in the airlock moving in oposite direction, well not for orval (brett?) beer, it started releasing more co2 and airlock activity obviously resumed. After two days of cold crashing and airlock still bubbling i couldn't bottle it last night so i did only 3711, i will check gravity on bret in few days.
I tried tasting samples from og readings and two beers were very different, both good, but i was surprised how "normal" brett beer was, surprisingly 3711 had more mouthful

I wanted to try something a little different. I know it will eventually be salvaged but DAMN is it taking forever. Instead of using a regular sach, I brewed up an Oud Bruin and pitch the brett brux directly as a primary yeast. After two weeks I have dropped from 1.051 to 1.040. I was thinking of going ahead and dropping in a vial of lacto and a few days later a vial of WLP001. I also have a smack pack of Roeselare that I could use instead of pitching the lacto and the sacc separately. So have I completely screwed myself here, should I just let it go as a completely brett brux beer, or should I add the lacto and the sach? I also have some american oak cubes in it.

brett only dropped it from 51 to 40 after 2 weeks? did u only pitch a vial of WLP? you should be much further along at this point. personally id go with commercial sour dregs, but from ur options id do Roe over lacto + 001