What's your favorte brett strain?

So about 6 months back i started my first 2 brett beers using wlp 670, a blonde and a stout, and am planning on bottling soon. So now im planning my next brett beer, most likely going to be a lambic with 100% brett. Whats your favorite strain for a lambic?

I was planning on using the brett lambicus strain from white labs, but was wondering if you all had a specific favorite for a lambic.

for it to be a lambic, you're going to need to use a combination of bacteria and yeast. wyeast makes a lambic blend that contains all you need. some dregs of your favorite gueuzes wouldn't hurt either (tilquin is a personal favorite that's widely available).

fivepoundpossum said:

for it to be a lambic, you're going to need to use a combination of bacteria and yeast. wyeast makes a lambic blend that contains all you need. some dregs of your favorite gueuzes wouldn't hurt either (tilquin is a personal favorite that's widely available).

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I could, but not so much a bacteria fan, id rather just make a funky-as-all-hell lambic with pure brett. Personal preference really. Also my lhbs only has white labs, and im too much of a cheapskate to buy yeast online

a pure brett beer won't be funky. it will be very clean. and, as previously mentioned, it won't be a lambic.

if you want funk, you need to use sacch in primary and then add brett in secondary (here's why). you'll want to go with brett lambicus for the most funk.

Alright, interesing ill try sacc first then brett. Im guessing a clean fermenter first so the esters dont interfere with the, is this correct?

actually, after skimming that thread, it looks like i want a phenolics first fomr a belgian strain, then let the brett go to town on those. is this right?

nicklepickles said:

Alright, interesing ill try sacc first then brett. Im guessing a clean fermenter first so the esters dont interfere with the, is this correct?

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you can go clean, some people prefer that.

personally, i like to go with high esters - i feel they play well with the funk, and i believe that brett actually transforms them too, to a limited extent. have you ever had a brett'ed saison? saison yeast produce a lot of esters, and brett'ed saisons are amazing. an old Orval is another example of esters & funk playing well together.

sweetcell said:

you can go clean, some people prefer that.

personally, i like to go with high esters - i feel they play well with the funk, and i believe that brett actually transforms them too, to a limited extent. have you ever had a brett'ed saison? saison yeast produce a lot of esters, and brett'ed saisons are amazing. an old Orval is another example of esters & funk playing well together.

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I'm not looking for those belgian-y esters, they are not my favorite, so i may go with a clean american. Or maybe an english yeast. do you think the english ale flavors and brett would go well together?

dunno, i've never done english yeast + brett. brett is a characteristic of certain classic british beers so i imagine they go together just fine. go for it!

sweetcell said:

dunno, i've never done english yeast + brett. brett is a characteristic of certain classic british beers so i imagine they go together just fine. go for it!

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awesome! definitey going to go british then. gives me an excuse to try out white labs burton ale as well, which ive been wanting to experiment with for awhile now. thanks for the advice/help!

the british yeast should work well. just don't expect the beer to give you the best sense of the original yeast. the brett in secondary will change things around quite a lot. if you're curious, you could rack off and bottle a gallon after primary for comparison. i've done that with saisons before and it was really interesting to try them back to back and really get a sense of what exactly the brett contributed.

Hm, thats an interesting idea. I brewed this up on monday, happily fermenting away right now with the burton ale. I ended up with about 6 gallons, i may transfer 1 gallon to my mini-carboy for another week and transfer the rest to a 5 gallon carboy, add brett and let it do its think for a good 6 months. My only concern with doing this is being able to try them side by side. Id imagine the un-brett version would change/age a good bit in the bottle, giving a different beer when i eventually try them back to back. Do yeast esters fade significantly in the bottle?

nicklepickles said:

My only concern with doing this is being able to try them side by side. Id imagine the un-brett version would change/age a good bit in the bottle, giving a different beer when i eventually try them back to back. Do yeast esters fade significantly in the bottle?

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yes, the un-brett'ed beer will age and develop but it's still a valid comparison: 6 month old beer with brett, vs. the same 6-month old beer without. comparing the fresh version of the beer to an aged brett'ed version would also be interesting, but to me it's somehow less applicable. makes more sense to compare two equally aged beers.

esters fade somewhat but not significantly, IMO.

I'm a relatively novice brewer, but my brewing has been mostly saisons. I recently tried a young saison against one with the same grain bill and yeast from a year before. Both were good, but the year old one was remarkably more smooth as a result of the esters mellowing.

sweetcell said:

yes, the un-brett'ed beer will age and develop but it's still a valid comparison: 6 month old beer with brett, vs. the same 6-month old beer without. comparing the fresh version of the beer to an aged brett'ed version would also be interesting, but to me it's somehow less applicable. makes more sense to compare two equally aged beers.

esters fade somewhat but not significantly, IMO.

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Hmm, good point. Onward with the experiment!

If you want to keep it all Brett, here's something I've always wanted to try, but haven't done so yet. Do an all-Brett primary, and then transfer to a secondary and pitch a new strain of Brett, or a new vial/starter of the same strain, so that it gets to work without many fermentables. I don't see why this wouldn't work, and could give the combination of the Brett primary character with some funk. Personally, I'd like to try this soon getting fruitiness out of a Brett Trois primary and then use Brux for some funk in the secondary or for bottle conditioning.

Thorpe429 said:

If you want to keep it all Brett, here's something I've always wanted to try, but haven't done so yet. Do an all-Brett primary, and then transfer to a secondary and pitch a new strain of Brett, or a new vial/starter of the same strain, so that it gets to work without many fermentables. I don't see why this wouldn't work, and could give the combination of the Brett primary character with some funk. Personally, I'd like to try this soon getting fruitiness out of a Brett Trois primary and then use Brux for some funk in the secondary or for bottle conditioning.

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it won't work. you need sacch's 4-vinyl by-products in order for brett to bring the funk. no species of brett produces 4-vinyl derivatives on its own, so no matter how many different bretts you pitch you won't get the building blocks for funk.

full (and better!) explanation: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/understanding-brett-flavors-298943/

sweetcell said:

it won't work. you need sacch's 4-vinyl by-products in order for brett to bring the funk. no species of brett produces 4-vinyl derivatives on its own, so no matter how much different bretts you pitch you won't get the building blocks for funk.

full (and better!) explanation: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/understanding-brett-flavors-298943/

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Thanks, very very helpful. Kind of a bummer, but at least now I don't have to worry about an experiment not turning out how I'd hoped.

Thorpe429 said:

If you want to keep it all Brett, here's something I've always wanted to try, but haven't done so yet. Do an all-Brett primary, and then transfer to a secondary and pitch a new strain of Brett, or a new vial/starter of the same strain, so that it gets to work without many fermentables. I don't see why this wouldn't work, and could give the combination of the Brett primary character with some funk. Personally, I'd like to try this soon getting fruitiness out of a Brett Trois primary and then use Brux for some funk in the secondary or for bottle conditioning.

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It won't work .... not sure why .......

sweetcell said:

it won't work. you need sacch's 4-vinyl by-products in order for brett to bring the funk. no species of brett produces 4-vinyl derivatives on its own, so no matter how much different bretts you pitch you won't get the building blocks for funk.

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............. now I know why!

Brett lambicus is the one to use with dark beers IMO. It brings the cherry flavor. I split a batch with B. bruxelensis and found the former much tastier.

passedpawn said:

Brett lambicus is the one to use with dark beers IMO. It brings the cherry flavor. I split a batch with B. bruxelensis and found the former much tastier.

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Can you elaborate on the flavor differences between B. Brux and B. Lamb when used in the secondary?

when y'all are saying "in secondary", are you talking a proper secondary fermentation with new sugars or just moving to a bulk age vessel?

jrfehon said:

Can you elaborate on the flavor differences between B. Brux and B. Lamb when used in the secondary?

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I made a 1.073 porter, fermented with S-04, then split it into two 5g batches. Those I inoculated with both Bretts. I did not use a secondary. I let the sacc ferment completely, then pitched the brett, and let that go for 5 months.

Both had a little of the same dank funkiness. The B. brux beer attenuated over 90%, and left the beer very dry (FG = 1.002!). It had a drier cleaner flavor, partially because of the low FG. I don't think there was any fruitiness at all - just that leathery flavor and aroma.

The B. lambicus attenuated about 85% and ended at 1.010. There was a noticeable bright cherry flavor (imagine cherry, but not sweet). I preferred this beer much more than the other one. Might have been the greater body, or the flavor, hard to say now. I added vanilla beans to this as well.

This was a year ago and that's what I remember. Both were kegged. By the time the weather got hot down here, I didn't feel like drinking either of them and they went on the lawn. I planned on bottling from the tap, but I was tired of the beer. By June I've got pilsners and pale ales flowing.