Wyeast 3711 - French Saison w/ Brett

So I just tasted my Saison made with 3711. It turned out great! Took an OG of 1.067 down to 1.000. Great esters, medium spice, really easy drinking.

The only thing I would change in future batches would be to add a bit (but definitely not too much) of sourness/funk to it.

My question is if I were to add Brett after fermentation completes, would it make any difference if the gravity's already down to 1.000? Would the Brett have anything to work with at that point?

Any advice here would be appreciated.

Cheers!

Brett will work with the yeast esters and convert them to different flavors. It can also break down and work with other yeast components, hop compounds, residual sugars and even alcohol. It probably won't get super funky but it will get some funk. 3711 is great about drying out a beer so it's often used in saisons bottled with brett since the brett will metabolize but not necessarily produce excess CO2 from metabolizing non-sugar and non-starch food sources. However, it would be wise to bottle in heavy Belgian-style bottles, weizen-style bottles, champagne bottles, or keg, just in case.

Thanks for the info, that makes good sense. If I choose to go the secondary route, would I need to give it a long time to attain those flavors? Basically this would be my first time brewing with Brett. I've heard aging is almost required when using it in the primary; is the same true for secondary?

Look at waiting at least 3-4 months for the flavors to emerge and the beer to stabilize. You could let it go longer for increased brett flavor.

I have a clean Saison (70% pale, 20% maize, 10% wheat) with 3711 going right now. I plan on bottling with Brett Brux once it hits 1.006 and letting the flavors develop under pressure for about 3 months. This saves me from putting brett into another secondary if I don't have to.

Boulevard does it this way and theirs comes out like a champion. One of the guys in my club did a brett secondary on his saison and it came out really well after about 3 months conditioning in the bottle.