EBY/BBA Brettanomyces Experiment

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brewguyver said:
Did anyone sterilize their vials before pitching? I'm considering wiping the sealed ones down with isopropyl alcohol (70%) to make sure they don't cross contaminate before pitching. "flaming the lid" seems like a bad idea in this situation - i don't want to kill the samples.

I plan to pop the wort in the pressure cooker tomorrow and then get the 50ml samples started

I cleaned all mine with 70% as two leaked. Plan to wipe top prior to opening as some liquid got inside parafilm/ label. Starting 15 subcultures prior to 200 ml starters.
 
20 pelecules all in a row. I can't guarantee all are the intended species (given I pitched 2 dregs), but everything looks good so far. The plan is to move to the 250 ml pint jars tomorrow.

image-870844377.jpg
 
Hey guys, it looks like everyone is making good progress. I got mine stepped up and ready for my individual batches. I'll be making 60 oz of wort for each strain. Which I'm hoping will yield me 4 bottles to taste over the course of a year.

With the help of Sam and Luke, we have a pretty complete evaluation system setup through Google. We believe we have all the questions we need included so that we will be able to figure out if differences in brewing technique lead to different flavor profiles.

Check out the Evaluation Sheets here - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Lu0d8bc-FyuKdlT5YZMRTsxymF-MMyUP-C9AhwKx5V8/viewform

We are open to feedback, if you think we missed something or it can be improved.
 
Because I'll be doing 1-gallon batches, I did a pre-starter in 45 ml, followed by a 200 ml starter in the 1-gallon carboy that I will be fermenting in.

The 50 ml tubes had enough left behind to get a lot of aroma, so I did an aroma sensory analysis after the pre-starter to see if I get similar characteristics post fermentation.

IMG_2961.jpg
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Here is a link to some more photos.
 
I am running all 20 Bretts in the experiment. Of the 20 cultures seems only EBY001 did not grow up in 15 ml tube (this one was crushed and had little volume). Anyone in the Midwest U.S. willing to send me slant or tube full. I am willing to send you sterile microfuge tubes and small labeled padded envelope to send it back..

Roy Ventullo
Waverly, Iowa 50677
 
Thought I had lost 001 in my batch but looks like it is catching uup. Enclosed a photo of all 20 cultures in 20 ml Malt Extract (with some casamino acids and yeast nutrient thrown it) after 9 days. Ready to transfer to 200 ml ME with nutrients in 500 ml flasks.

20 bretts.jpg
 
Looking good Roy! I went with 1/2 full pint canning jars - was easier to sterilize and way cheaper (~$1 a piece vs $5+). Tomorrow starts day 4 of the 250 ml pitch and hoping to see some action soon!
 
Looking good Roy! I went with 1/2 full pint canning jars - was easier to sterilize and way cheaper (~$1 a piece vs $5+). Tomorrow starts day 4 of the 250 ml pitch and hoping to see some action soon!
I was thinking canning jars but since I run the microbio lab at school I went science geek style with flasks
 
Just getting here late as I've been helping one of my sons move across the country and can now hopefully concentrate on something a bit more fun.....I received the following 9 and have added a few extra that I had on hands and a bit old and wanted to see if they are still alive and well...
EBY001 B. girardin I
EBY002 B. dreifonteinii I
EBY005 B. cantillon I - slow growers
EBY007 B. italiana I
EBY015 B. lostfontain II
EBY016 B. lembeek I - slow growers
EBY019 B. cucurbita I
EBY020 B. jurassienne I
EBY021 B. bruery I
Additionally added:
WLP 650 brusellensis A
WLP 650 brusellensis B
WLP 653 lambicus
Petrus Pale

also picked up a bunch of sours from several places in Colorado and will post later as I hope to see if the dregs are ok and if so can share if anyone interested in any or swapping...
 
With my malt profiles, the recipe calculates out to 4.6 SRM in color. The official recipe has it at "around 10." I looked and saw that my malts are all lighter in color:
Pilsner (French): 2.0 SRM
Wheat (White): 2.4 SRM
Munich: 10 SRM
Acid Malt: 3.0 SRM

I'm not sure if Jeff intended for a specific wheat malt or Munich producer to be used, but this is what I believe I'm going with.
 
Final got to pitch my eby 12 and
Eby 17. Both are bubbling away. Nice Krausen on top. Looking forward to tasting these.
 
With my malt profiles, the recipe calculates out to 4.6 SRM in color. The official recipe has it at "around 10." I looked and saw that my malts are all lighter in color:
Pilsner (French): 2.0 SRM
Wheat (White): 2.4 SRM
Munich: 10 SRM
Acid Malt: 3.0 SRM

I'm not sure if Jeff intended for a specific wheat malt or Munich producer to be used, but this is what I believe I'm going with.
The calculated color of the beer is around 10 EBC which is equal to about 5 SRM. We in Europe use EBC rather than SRM. To get from EBC to SRM you simply divide the EBC value by 1.97 to get the SRM value. You should be fine with your malts then.

Cheers, Sam
 
Brewed and pitched today. A few of them turned out to be rather gelatinous when I was pouring the starter in (and tasting with leftover decanted wort). Oddly slimy. Got tired of tasting after 12 samples.
Starting with 1/2 gallon batches, then bigger batches/barrels with combos of the best ones.
 
If anyone has any any dregs from Russian River Temptations I would love to buy a pinch from you....thanks

All my 9 are building up nicely and hope to brew next week....two at most and get mine cooking in hopes for some great beers out of this very neat experiment.....THANKS Sam
 
lcat45 said:
If anyone has any any dregs from Russian River Temptations I would love to buy a pinch from you....thanks All my 9 are building up nicely and hope to brew next week....two at most and get mine cooking in hopes for some great beers out of this very neat experiment.....THANKS Sam
You can find Russian River beers online pretty easily, though Temptation is a little harder to find than the rest (other than Beat).
 
BBA/EBY Experiment. All twenty 200 ml starters are ready after 5-6 days on shaker (see image). Yeast counts varied from 17-26 billion cells. Cold crashed the yeast and added ~25 ml slurry to each 1/2 gallon fermenter. # 21 and 39 started up after 12 hours.

brett flasks small.jpg
 
Thanks TNGabe for the reply....yes you're right about it being out there only problem is in my search no one has any or they don't mail it so bout like not being out there, that's why I ask .....oh well appreciate the reply
 
I pitched all 19 of my strains into 1/2 +/- gallon wort yesterday afternoon. (1 vial did not survive the trip, but was replaced by a wlp575 I have on hand as a sort of control.)

Eby038 was the first to take off in the 200ml starters and was the only one bubbling this morning in the 1/2 gallon batch.

I took a wiff of the starters prior to pitching and recorded notes which I will combine with my final tasting notes. In my experience, the sniff test is not very indicative of the final product. But, with that said, two starters has noticeable acidic aromas - which is something I look for in Brett. There was a lot of tropical fruit, barnyard, soil/earth, etc but the two with acidity stood out.

I am also monitoring when cultures visibly start fermenting (bubbles, krausen, etc). I will continue taking notes and compile a comprehensive report at the close of this project.

I'm happy to see that some folks are taking the more scientific approach with cell counts etc.
 
At 48 hours post pitching at 68 F into 1/2 gallon and several of the cultures have not really started moving the water in the air :confused:

I am new to using Brett as a primary yeast. Is this normal ? Are there slow starters? I did cold crash the yeast and wonder if they went dormant (I have done this before with my Saccharomyces starters and has no problems.)

Any response would be appreciated....
 
At 48 hours post pitching at 68 F into 1/2 gallon and several of the cultures have not really started moving the water in the air :confused:

I am new to using Brett as a primary yeast. Is this normal ? Are there slow starters? I did cold crash the yeast and wonder if they went dormant (I have done this before with my Saccharomyces starters and has no problems.)

Any response would be appreciated....

Roy,

Depending on the strain, many Brettanomyces strains are slow starters when compared to Saccharomyces especially if you cold crashed. You should be fine, just give it some time.

Hope that helps,
Cheers
 
At 48 hours post pitching at 68 F into 1/2 gallon and several of the cultures have not really started moving the water in the air :confused:

I am new to using Brett as a primary yeast. Is this normal ? Are there slow starters? I did cold crash the yeast and wonder if they went dormant (I have done this before with my Saccharomyces starters and has no problems.)

Any response would be appreciated....

Clarifying question: did you step up the vials to 200ml (or some other volume) prior to the 1/2 gallon step? Also, how long did you keep the yeast in cold storage for?

Reason I ask these questions is because the population of Brett in the vial is very small - I did not see any activity for about 4 days on my first step (200ml). And even after four days, I only saw activity in one starter. The other 18 strains kicked off within several days following the first.

Also, I've read that Brett survives better when stored at room temperature as opposed to cold storage (as we would normally treat Saccharomyces. This is merely something I've read and heard repeated on this forum and others so I'll let the scientists chime in if necessary. Until I'm corrected, though, I will continue to store my Brett at "room temperature" (in my fermentation area).
 
Also, I've read that Brett survives better when stored at room temperature as opposed to cold storage (as we would normally treat Saccharomyces. This is merely something I've read and heard repeated on this forum and others so I'll let the scientists chime in if necessary. Until I'm corrected, though, I will continue to store my Brett at "room temperature" (in my fermentation area).

That info comes from Chad Yakobson of Crooked Stave who did his dissertation on Brettanomyces and is probably one of the most respected people in terms of Brett knowledge so I doubt you'll ever be corrected on that one. I do the same thing.
 
Clarifying question: did you step up the vials to 200ml (or some other volume) prior to the 1/2 gallon step? Also, how long did you keep the yeast in cold storage for?

Reason I ask these questions is because the population of Brett in the vial is very small - I did not see any activity for about 4 days on my first step (200ml). And even after four days, I only saw activity in one starter. The other 18 strains kicked off within several days following the first.

Also, I've read that Brett survives better when stored at room temperature as opposed to cold storage (as we would normally treat Saccharomyces. This is merely something I've read and heard repeated on this forum and others so I'll let the scientists chime in if necessary. Until I'm corrected, though, I will continue to store my Brett at "room temperature" (in my fermentation area).
berebrando:
I did 20 ml cultures from the original micro tubes I got from Sam. About week or so at room temperature them used 15ml of that to the 200 ml flasks (shown in my post) which grew shaking slowly for about 10 days (good growth in all) and then I cold crashed overnight (18 hours ?), poured off the spent media and used slurry to pitch the 1/2 gallon batches. Reading your posts...looks like cold is not good idea...
 
Roy2Ventullo said:
berebrando: I did 20 ml cultures from the original micro tubes I got from Sam. About week or so at room temperature them used 15ml of that to the 200 ml flasks (shown in my post) which grew shaking slowly for about 10 days (good growth in all) and then I cold crashed overnight (18 hours ?), poured off the spent media and used slurry to pitch the 1/2 gallon batches. Reading your posts...looks like cold is not good idea...

Right - probably not a good idea, but I'm sure your cultures will wake up given enough time. How long has it been since you pitched?
 
Off to a slow start (my bad, I cold crashed the 200 ml starter to get just a slurry and Bretts did not like it) but by day 4 after pitching all but EBY 008, 011, and 013 are bubbling away. will likely redo those 3 soonest.

better 20 brett.jpg
 
Roy2Ventullo said:
Off to a slow start (my bad, I cold crashed the 200 ml starter to get just a slurry and Bretts did not like it) but by day 4 after pitching all but EBY 008, 011, and 013 are bubbling away. will likely redo those 3 soonest.

In my experience, 08 was a very slow starter, too. Happy to hear things are kicking off!
 
Sorry for not replying here in a while. I have been reading all the posts though. I will publish some preliminary data about the individual strains tomorrow which I collected during the cultivation process of getting the strains ready to ship. And I am currently stepping up the yeasts as well to do my part of the experiment.

@Roy: You did count the cells, right? I assume by microscopy. Do you experienced any "abnormalities" by looking at the different samples in terms of contamination etc? I am surprised to read about sour flavors of the yeasts as previously mentioned in this thread and would be interested to know if this might be due to an infection.

Concerning the lag times. I have no idea how long Bretts need to adapt from aerobic growth (starter) to anaerobic (fermentation). I do have some kinetic growth data for the individual conditions but not for the transition from aerobic to anaerobic or vice versa. I assume the lag times are rather from the adaptation to the new environment rather than the cold treatment. I however have no empirical proof for my hypothesis here. The cold treatment's effect on the lag times just seem less likely to me.

Cheers, Sam
 
I experienced slower growth rates for the following strains:

EBY005 (B. cantillon I), EBY008 (B. cantillon II), EBY009 (B. cantillon III), EBY011 (B. cantillon V), EBY013 (B. cantillon VII) and EBY016 (B. lembeek I).

Cheers, Sam
 
Sorry for not replying here in a while. I have been reading all the posts though. I will publish some preliminary data about the individual strains tomorrow which I collected during the cultivation process of getting the strains ready to ship. And I am currently stepping up the yeasts as well to do my part of the experiment.

@Roy: You did count the cells, right? I assume by microscopy. Do you experienced any "abnormalities" by looking at the different samples in terms of contamination etc? I am surprised to read about sour flavors of the yeasts as previously mentioned in this thread and would be interested to know if this might be due to an infection.

Concerning the lag times. I have no idea how long Bretts need to adapt from aerobic growth (starter) to anaerobic (fermentation). I do have some kinetic growth data for the individual conditions but not for the transition from aerobic to anaerobic or vice versa. I assume the lag times are rather from the adaptation to the new environment rather than the cold treatment. I however have no empirical proof for my hypothesis here. The cold treatment's effect on the lag times just seem less likely to me.

Cheers, Sam
@Sam One of my students used a haemocytometer at 400x to count yeast. She did not notice bacteria in any samples but we will check Monday with phase contrast microscope.
Also did not taste but smelled the 15 ml cultures. Maybe sour was poor choice of words....funky is probably better description
 
Roy2Ventullo said:
@Sam One of my students used a haemocytometer at 400x to count yeast. She did not notice bacteria in any samples but we will check Monday with phase contrast microscope.
Also did not taste but smelled the 15 ml cultures. Maybe sour was poor choice of words....funky is probably better description

I just pitched my 20 into gallon jugs. I think sour is a great description for a few the samples and funk music great description for the rest. I got a great mouth puckering smell from either 001 or 002 and various horse/blanket/barnyard aromas from most of the others.

I'll give specific details when I get home on Friday, but SWMBO Let me know that there was already a Krausen forming in about a quarter of the Carboys.

As an aside, has anyone who topped off their "carboys" had blowoff issues? I saw a few snapshots of full growlers being used. If not, I may want to bottle less of the "favorites" from this experiment and top those off with fresh wort.
 
5 days later and most of the fermenters are active. I had a burning desire to post a few pics in the "is this infected?" section, but decided not to cause trouble. I'll post pictures in the morning.
 
Brewguyver:

Differences in fermentation looks familiar. I now have all 20 going although they started at quite different times. Last two just started producing gas last weekend, 3 weeks after pitching. About 10 have stopped producing gas and yeast are settling. Wondering if I should rack those first ones off the krausen/yeastbed to secondary while the rest finish up although I recall Sam mentioned we might bottle directly from primary? Just want to be sure we do not pick up any bad taste from yeast/trub.
Roy
 
So.... I got a little nutso, brewed a 50 gallon batch, and pitched all 20 strains into one barrel. It currently has a slimy consistency... rather, it's all super slimy. Thoughts? I've never experienced this in all my years of brewing sours.
 
ChugachBrewing said:
So.... I got a little nutso, brewed a 50 gallon batch, and pitched all 20 strains into one barrel. It currently has a slimy consistency... rather, it's all super slimy. Thoughts? I've never experienced this in all my years of brewing sours.

Do you think the sliminess carries over from your starters? I didn't have a similar experience (although I did have some jelly-like pelecules floating), but I let my 2nd step go almost a month. I also did only 200 ml starters.

How's it smell/taste?
 
First batch I've been afraid to taste ;)

Some starters were slightly slimy. Smells good. was talking to Mike Tonsmeire... he confirmed what i had thought... "Pediococcus produces exopolysaccharides, long chains of sugars. Nothing to worry about, some brewers claim it is an important stage. Brett will break them down over the next few weeks or months. I've only seen it once, really freaky."
 
First batch I've been afraid to taste ;)

Some starters were slightly slimy. Smells good. was talking to Mike Tonsmeire... he confirmed what i had thought... "Pediococcus produces exopolysaccharides, long chains of sugars. Nothing to worry about, some brewers claim it is an important stage. Brett will break them down over the next few weeks or months. I've only seen it once, really freaky."

Did you pitch pedio also or was it already in the barrel? Confused on why your starters slimey?
 
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