My First Brett Saison

I really want to brew a saison and pitch Brett Brux (Wyeast 5112) in the secondary. Since I've never brewed this style before do any of you have any advice? I was thinking of using Wyeast 3724 as the primary yeast strain but I know it likes temps up to 90 degrees. I have a small greenhouse which, even now as it's getting colder in the northeast, stays around 80 degrees during the day and gets down to 65 at night. Would these temps be okay for 3724? If not then I might have to hold off until the summer.

I would say that would be sufficient, especially considering your secondary plans. 3724 should work well at 80 F (and the temperature of the fermenting wort will be even higher), and if you wanted to push against the night-time drops, you could insulate with a blanket or sleeping bag. Also, even if it does stall, you'd still be able to fall back on the Brett to drop the final gravity to an appropriate level, though you may then end up with a beer that's more Brett-heavy than you're looking for.

I don't have my notes on me, but I'm doing exactly what you're doing. My first saison and my first use of brett. I brewed about a week and a half ago and pitched 3724. In about a month I'll put half in a secondary with the brett and half with some kind of higher attenuating ale yeast. I have some pacman that I'm going harvest soon. I wouldn't add the pacman, but my room is between 61-69 most of the time so I'd be drinking sugar water if I didn't. Let's keep in touch and compare notes if you end up brewing. I'll put up my recipe when I get the chance. So far it smells pretty good with just the saison yeast.

Ari said:

I don't have my notes on me, but I'm doing exactly what you're doing. My first saison and my first use of brett. I brewed about a week and a half ago and pitched 3724. In about a month I'll put half in a secondary with the brett and half with some kind of higher attenuating ale yeast. I have some pacman that I'm going harvest soon. I wouldn't add the pacman, but my room is between 61-69 most of the time so I'd be drinking sugar water if I didn't. Let's keep in touch and compare notes if you end up brewing. I'll put up my recipe when I get the chance. So far it smells pretty good with just the saison yeast.

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Sounds good! I'm going to go with a pretty basic recipe, along the lines of a traditional saison with mostly pilsner and munich malt. At flame out I'm going to add some spices, just not sure which ones, probably coriander and orange peel. I'm hoping to brew at the end of next week. I'll post my recipe then and notes on the brew day. Good luck with your saison!

After doing more research I think I've finalized my 5 gallon - partial mash recipe for my brett saison. I'm going to mash for 60 minutes at 149 degrees, sparge then boil.

4LB Extra Light DME
2LB Belgian Pilsner Malt
1LB Munich Malt
1LB Acid Malt
8oz Caramel Malt

.5oz Styrian Goldings FWH
.5oz East Kent Goldings 60 min
.5oz East Kent Goldings 12 min
.5oz Styrian Goldings 2min

Orange Peel and Coriander at Flame Out
Primary - Wyeast 3724 or 3463
Secondary - Wyeast 5526

OG - 1.057
IBUs - 16.9
SRM - 5.1

I think I'll split after six months or so in the secondary (depending on taste) and rack one half onto fruit (maybe oranges) and leave the other half alone. Depending on taste, I might dry hop as well.

Any thoughts? I debated using brett as the primary yeast but I want more funk.

Why not 3711? I made a. Blonde a while ago in the summer and it took FOREVER. It say stayed at 1.040 from 1.060 for a month and a half. I put it in my garage, wrapped it, put heat packs on it. It didn't want to drop. Finally threw some champaign yeast in it to drop it the rest of the way

Rys06Tbss said:

Why not 3711? I made a. Blonde a while ago in the summer and it took FOREVER. It say stayed at 1.040 from 1.060 for a month and a half. I put it in my garage, wrapped it, put heat packs on it. It didn't want to drop. Finally threw some champaign yeast in it to drop it the rest of the way

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I never thought about using 3711. I was going to go with 3724 because I've read it finishes "crisp and mildly acidic". That's the flavor profile I'm trying to achieve in addition to the brett funk. I have a small greenhouse that stays around 80 degrees for most of the day so I figured I'd have high enough temps for it to ferment completely.

That should work. I just like 3711becauee it works around 65 to 70 which is what my pantry remains at most of the year

Would you recommend mashing at a higher temp, closer to 160, than lower around 145-150? I know higher temps will create more unfermentable sugars, which would end up being food for the brett. Has anyone brewed a brett saison and mashed at higher temps for this reason?

From what I've read, you'll taste the brett with only a tiny change. Especially when you use a yeast like 3724 that tends to stall unless you get it pretty hot. They're should be plenty of sugars left regardless of mash temp. This is all just me parroting some articles and threads though. Never tried it personally

ok, my two cents...

3711 is fairly one dimensional. yeah, I know, it works quickly and ferments to near champagne dryness, but ya know.... good things come to those who.... and all that.

3724 is great. I find a nice, big starter helps A LOT. but, if you want it to stall out to leave something for the brett, I'd under pitch. I wouldn't recommend mashing upwards to 160f, I'd say, ( for what you're after) MAYBE mash around 150f and dump the crystal malt. OR preferably, mash for high attenuation, under pitch with 3724, add some oats and or rye to the grist, and pitch the brett when the yeast stalls out at around 1020. that's PLENTY of food for the brett.

as far as bulk aging goes, I would HIGHLY recommend letting it age for at least 8 months. I'm currently drinking on a brett farmhouse that I aged for one year and it's crazy what a difference time makes. you can smell the beer from a few feet away. huge fruit aromas, a bit of funk, but mostly ripe peaches and apricots.

Hey bootsy, may I ask what strain of brett you used and the general details of how you made your beer? Your description sounds excellent!

I'm going to throw the suggestion of using that new private collection Wyeast 3726 Farmhouse in place of the 3724. It has very similar character to 3724, but the work ethic of 3711. It also floccs out like nothing I've used before. It dropped a 1.048 table saison to 1.003 in 6 days. Nice fruit, a bit of spice.

the brett saison I was referring to was actually based off of a starter I built up from the dregs of a bottle of Seizon Bretta from Logsdon. which is generally eschewed due to the fact that the brett-to-sacc ratio will almost assuredly be all over the place. I took my chances and it worked out, results may vary.


in other words, I have no clue what strain of brett Logsdon uses.

the general details were nothing fancy.

Just a typical saison grist: 70'ish% pils, 15% Munich, some oats, some acid malt. I don't fuss much over the grist. 40 ibu's, I prefer noble hops. pretty sure i used brewers good and bramling cross. mashed around 148f. double batch sparge. 90 min boil. aged in the corner of my dining room for a year, temps swing all over the place in there.

dry hopped with home grown Goldings for a week before bottling. bottled in 750's.

that's about it.

having done brett secondary saisons with both 3724 and 3711, i prefer the ester profile of 3724 and how it gets subtly altered by the presence of the brett. i usually mash low and don't really worry about leaving dextrinous sugars for the brett (it just adds time before you can drink it). 80s has worked as a temp range. and i'll let it ferment on its own with the 3724 for a month and then add a packet of brett brux or better yet, the dregs of a brett beer like the russian river/sierra nevada brux (even though that beer isn't great young, after a year of aging it's awesome and has helped me make some fine saisons). finally, dry hopping a week before bottling works really well (i used saaz and nelson for my last one).

I know with sour ales there's a max IBU before the preservative nature of hops inhibits the growth of the wild yeast. Do those rules apply to a Brett beer? If I use Brett B in the secondary could I brew with hops higher in alpha acid?

jrfehon said:

I know with sour ales there's a max IBU before the preservative nature of hops inhibits the growth of the wild yeast. Do those rules apply to a Brett beer? If I use Brett B in the secondary could I brew with hops higher in alpha acid?

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The IBUs inhibit Lacto, not wild yeast. You can ferment with Brett at any IBU level.

^ that's right. the ibu's won't inhibit the brett. i wouldn't go too bitter, though, on flavor grounds. i recently made a brett trois ipa at about 45 ibu, with most of the hopping done at the flavor and dry hop addition (6 oz hops to the dry hop). turned out great. the bitter note was there, but didn't get in the way of all the wonderful fruit flavors of the brett and dry hops.

fivepoundpossum said:

^ that's right. the ibu's won't inhibit the brett. i wouldn't go too bitter, though, on flavor grounds. i recently made a brett trois ipa at about 45 ibu, with most of the hopping done at the flavor and dry hop addition (6 oz hops to the dry hop). turned out great. the bitter note was there, but didn't get in the way of all the wonderful fruit flavors of the brett and dry hops.

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I was thinking the same thing. What was your hop bill? I've been tinkering with what I'm going to do and I've come up with this for my 6 gallon batch with a 60 minute boil:

1oz Amarillo FWH
.5 oz centennial 60 minutes
.5 oz citra 12 minutes
.5 oz centennial 2 minutes
.5 oz citra FO

IBUs should be around 38.8.

I'm going to split the batch into three parts after 6 months and rerack one third onto grapefruit, one third onto another fruit (not sure yet) and the other third will be without fruit. I'm going to then dry hop each third with different hops, not sure yet what variety, probably citra and Amarillo.

I guess to each their own and all, but... that sounds more like an American IPA than a saison.

BootsyFlanootsy said:

I guess to each their own and all, but... that sounds more like an American IPA than a saison.

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That's more or less what I'm going for, similar to Green Flash Rayon Vert (but hopefully with less head - that beer has way too much carbonation!).

I think the head comes from high carbonation because they add at bottling and it continues to attenuate the beer.

ahpsp said:

I think the head comes from high carbonation because they add at bottling and it continues to attenuate the beer.

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They add Brett at bottling? The flavor of that beer is great but the carbonation is treacherous. Wish it were more manageable.

Yes, my understanding is that the beer is like Orval, fermented with Sacc to a fairly low FG, and then Brett is added as the bottling yeast. I don't know if they also add simp,e sugars for carbing or just let the Brett go to work on the residual gravity. I've read elsewhere, perhaps here at HBT, that some of the types of flavors beers like that have are actually from the Brett working under literal, that is to say atmospheric+, pressure.

my hop bill for 6 gal of all-brett trois ipa (~40ibu) was:

1 oz Pacifica (mash)
.2 oz Magnum (60)
.2 oz Columbus (60)
.2 oz Chinook (60)
1 oz Pacifica (5)
1 oz Simcoe (5)
.5 oz Columbus (0)
2 oz Pacifica (dry 6 days)
2 oz Simcoe (dry 7 days)
2 oz Amarillo (dry 7 days)

I finally got to brew this beer last night. Here's the recipe I went with:

4LBs Briess Pilsen Light DME
2.5LBs Pilsen Malt (2 Row Belgian)
1LB Munich
1LB Acid Malt
.5LB Unmalted Wheat

I did a partial mash - 60 minutes at 150 degrees - did a full (5.25 gallons) 60 minute boil. Here's the hop bill I went with (inspired by Two Hearted):

1oz Centennial (60 Minutes)
1oz Centennial (15 Minutes)
1oz Centennial (5 Minutes)
1oz Centennial (1 Minute)

I also added 1/3 TSP of coriander and 1 TBS of bitter orange peel at flame out. My IBUs are 58.9 and the SRM is 4.6. Target gravity was 1.055, which I missed at 1.052 (I tend to miss my target OG when I use Briess Pilsen Light DME, anyone else experience that?). I pitched Wyeast 3724 around 11pm and when I got up at 8am this morning it was already in active fermentation. My plastic fermentation bucket is by some grow lights I have on for plants which gets the room up to 85 degrees during the day. I have some blankets wrapped around the bucket to keep it at that temp. After primary is done I'll rerack into a glass carboy and pitch a vile of WLP650 (Brett Brux). When the flavor is right I'll split and rerack onto a few different fruits and dry hop each section - probably with citra.

So a change of plans with my brett saison. I've decided to do an experiment with hop flavors and brett secondary beer. I brewed the first 5.25 gallon (partial mash) batch exclusively with centennial hops (see above). I really like the floral notes Two Hearted has so that was the inspiration. I decided to brew the same saison with the same hop schedule but exclusively with citra. Brew day for saison #2 was last Saturday and everything went well. I hit my gravity with this one and it started fermentation shortly after pitching the yeast. I've never used citra exclusively so it'll be interesting to see what happens. My plan is to let both batches sit in the primary for one month to let the Belgian saison yeast (Wyeast 3724) lower the gravity to around 1.014. Then I'll split each batch into 2.5 gallon segments. Half of the centennial saison will get brett brux (WLP650) and the other half will get brett lamb (WLP653). Same thing for the citra saison, half getting brett b and half brett L. After aging for at least six months I'll dry hop all four segments with an ounce of hops in each segment, the citra saison getting citra and centennial getting an ounce of centennial. It'll be interesting to see how each hop profile compliments the flavors from each brett strain. It's not a very in depth experiment but I thought it would be fun. I'll post an update in a month when I rerack and pitch the brett.

Does anyone know if I should make starters with the vials of brett or just let the vials warm up to room temperature and then pitch? If so is it the same technique as a regular sacc starter?

if you're pitching the brett as a secondary yeast, no need for a starter.

jrfehon said:

Does anyone know if I should make starters with the vials of brett or just let the vials warm up to room temperature and then pitch? If so is it the same technique as a regular sacc starter?

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no starter needed.

brett is best stored at room temp. the cells die off faster in the fridge, unlike sacc.

sweetcell said:

no starter needed.

brett is best stored at room temp. the cells die off faster in the fridge, unlike sacc.

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That's good to know. I have them in the fridge. I guess I should pull the vials out now? I'm not going to pitch them for three more weeks.

yup, pull 'em out and put them in a dark corner (back of a pantry or cupboard should work great).

Just a quick update on my brett saison experiment. To refresh, I brewed two, 5.25 gallon batches of identical saisons (see post #27 for recipe) in November and used different hop bills - one all Citra and the other all Centennial (4oz each). I reracked today and split each batch in half into 3 gallon better bottles. The Centennial batch got down to 1.004 in just over a month in the primary. The Citra batch was only at 1.018. I attribute this to only 27 days in the primary (Centennial batch was in the primary for 38 days) and I underpitched the yeast (Wyeast 3724). When I reracked I made sure to carry over some trub for the brett to eat. I'm thinking that the Citra batch may end up with more funk due to it not attenuating like the Centennial batch. The flavors were both good. The centennial batch I used the exact same hop bill as Bells Two Hearted and it tasted the same - some bitterness and floral. The Citra batch was slightly sweet, slightly bitter and very tropical fruity. After I split each batch I added brett brux (WLP650) to one half and brett lamb (WLP653) to the other. So the experiment is how each brett strain acts as the secondary yeast and how the flavors mix with centennial and citra hops. Also, since the citra batch wasn't fully attenuated we'll see how much extra funk the brett secondary adds.

jrfehon said:

The Centennial batch got down to 1.004 in just over a month in the primary. The Citra batch was only at 1.018. I attribute this to only 27 days in the primary (Centennial batch was in the primary for 38 days) and I underpitched the yeast (Wyeast 3724).

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were both batches made with 3724? that yeast is famous/notorious for not completing fermentation in a timely manner. with some time and heat, the citra batch might have gone further.

jrfehon said:

When I reracked I made sure to carry over some trub for the brett to eat. I'm thinking that the Citra batch may end up with more funk due to it not attenuating like the Centennial batch. (...) Also, since the citra batch wasn't fully attenuated we'll see how much extra funk the brett secondary adds.

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check out this post from Chad Yacobson on where the funk comes from: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/understanding-brett-flavors-298943/ if you subscribe to his theories (and the man does know a lot about brett!), the gravity of the beer doesn't affect funk. that's why 100% brett beers aren't funky at all - no sacch by-products to funkify. so who knows which batch will be funkier.

sweetcell said:

were both batches made with 3724? that yeast is famous/notorious for not completing fermentation in a timely manner. with some time and heat, the citra batch might have gone further.

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Yes, both were fermented with 3724 and both in the same location at the same temperature, which is why I think the one batch was underpitched. Maybe not.

sweetcell said:

check out this post from Chad Yacobson on where the funk comes from: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/understanding-brett-flavors-298943/ if you subscribe to his theories (and the man does know a lot about brett!), the gravity of the beer doesn't affect funk. that's why 100% brett beers aren't funky at all - no sacch by-products to funkify. so who knows which batch will be funkier.

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What a great read! I have actually read this a number of times before and keep going back to it every time I use brett. It'll be interesting to see if the citra batch does get more funky. Since I didn't use brett as the primary yeast strain maybe it will eat some of the sugar and some of the sacc by products and ultimately create more funk? I thought I read on the forum somewhere that pitching brett in the secondary before the sacc yeast has fully attenuated makes more funk. Although according to Chad Yacobson it won't. We'll see...

Here's a photo of one of the centennial halves with brett brux (WLP650). In four days it created this wicked pellicle! I posted this photo in the pellicle photo thread too. Brett is so cool!

That's sweet! I took 3 gallons of 2 month old saison and put it in with the same strain and I haven't seen a pellicle but it's been bubbling quite a bit since. How long are you thinking of letting that sit?

Ari said:

That's sweet! I took 3 gallons of 2 month old saison and put it in with the same strain and I haven't seen a pellicle but it's been bubbling quite a bit since. How long are you thinking of letting that sit?

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I'm going to take a gravity reading at three months and then at four months. If there's stability and a decent funk level then I'll start bottling. It would be nice to have these beers ready for summer.

I'm doing the same thing with my black saison. I expected the 3724 to stall at about 1.030. Started out high at about 1.070. Pitched a built up blend of brett from bottle dregs. Keeping temperatures considerably lower at about 60 during the brett aging. Already got my little peppery character from 3724, now waiting for the brett to round off the kick and lower the gravity, plus funk of course.

I have done similar brews and it is one of my favorite beers. It will continue to change in the bottle for a very long time-I just drank the last bottle of the first one I brewed about 1.5 years ago and it was amazing! Tart, dry, floral, vinous...I really wish I hadn't consumed so many when it was young and funky vs. aged and mellowed! I usually split the batch so I can taste the identical beer brewed with & w/o the Brett as it ages and changes over time. To be fair, the straight 3724 brews don't really come into their own for several months. Can't wait to hear how this turns out. And awesome pellicle! I saw it on the pellicle thread first, very cool to read the story behind it!

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