Old Ale Blend (w/ Brettanomyces)Wyeast 9097 -

Brewed my first "big" beer on Friday and did up an Old Ale recipe that came in at 1.070. From everything I've read, this should be aged in the secondary for 6 to 9mths. I guess my questions are:

1. Should I rack off the yeast cake to secondary at 2wks (I'd like to dry hop for 1mth)?
2. Let it fully age in secondary for 6-9mths, then bottle, but what's the best way to carb up at that point? I've never used carb tabs before.

3. Would you bottle any of this early, say at two months to enjoy the early flavors?

Here is the recipe:

Amount Item Type
11.00 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal MALT-90L (90.0 SRM) Grain
0.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain
0.25 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain

Mash In: Add 16.82 qt of water at 167.8 F
60 min - Hold mash at 156.0 F for 60 min
2 min Step: Add 10.00 qt of water at 196.9 F
10 min - Hold mash at 170.0 F for 10 min
-- Drain Mash Tun
-- Batch Sparge Round 1: Sparge with 2.11 gal of 168.0 F water.
-- Add water to achieve boil volume of 7.00 gal
-- Estimated Pre-boil Gravity is: 1.056 SG with all grains/extracts added
Boil for 60 min Boil Ingredients
Boil Amount Item Type
60 min 2.00 oz Fuggles [4.50 %] (60 min) Hops
30 min 1.00 oz Challenger [7.50 %] (30 min) Hops
10 min 1.00 lb Brown Sugar, Dark (50.0 SRM) Sugar
10 min 1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (10 min) Hops
2 min 1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (2 min) Hops

I did a beer with this yeast a couple months ago and I did rack to a secondary after a couple weeks. I don't usually secondary but I plan to let this one sit for a year so I thought it would be a good idea...plus I wanted my primary back. After your 6-9 months just go ahead and bottle as you normally would with batch priming. I would wait to dry hop till one month before bottling...that was the hop aroma is still fresh. I you wanna bottle some early I think that is a good idea so you can get a feel for what aging a beer with brett does.

If you bottle early, be sure to consume quickly. Bottle bombs may be an issue. I say just wait it out. Brett works slowly.