Fantome & Orval cultures

Hello all,

I know it's a little late, but I'm looking to brew something for spring/early summer that is a little funky but refreshing. Right now I'm thinking a saison since I've brewed the style before and was pleased, but would like to try something different with it.

I have Fantome (no other name on it...just a ghost and a castle) and Orval available near me. I have seen a couple of other threads on it, but can anyone else comment on the viability of raising a culture of the yeast from one of these two? I'm aware there's Brett, that's why I'm interested. If possible I'd like it to be drinkable by early April, but I'm aware this might be asking a bit much, and the timeline is less important than making a nice beer.

Thanks in advance!

I've had success culturing brett from Orval. I would definitely not expect the saison to be ready by April if you are doing a brett secondary.

My plan is basically just making a small starter and stepping it up from dregs of one of the two. Will you get only brett if you do this? My plan was to use one of the strains as the primary actually, but if I used it as only secondary, what do you think the timeline would be like?

I brewed a Saison last summer using Fantome cultures. I had a bottle of Fantome Dark White with a ton of yeast in the bottom...I pitched the dregs into an 800mL starter and then pitched that directly into the wort.

I fermented it in my garage (90+) for a few days....it dropped from 1.056 to 1.001 in less than 72 hours. I pulled it inside and let it age in the primary for about 3.5 months before kegging.

It finished with a very nice tartness, that over time is turning more and more sour. It has strong granny smith apple and pear notes. I put a few bottles into competition back in December and it scored a 39.

A friend of mine made a saison using the same cultures at the same time, but kegged his after just a month...little to no sour/funk, but still a very tasty saison!
Good luck!

That sounds like their standard saison you have from Fantome.

I love that offering of theirs. I looked into culturing the yeast and bacteria they have in it. I've read it contains a very aggressive strain of lacto and that folks who culture it up get some very sour resultsmore along the lines of a lambic than a slightly sour saison.

I'm interested in what others have to day about this though.

AH, maybe your yeast was in better health since the dark white is only 4% abv vs 8% in their regular saison? That could be an advantage here...

ahurd110 said:

I fermented it in my garage (90+) for a few days....it dropped from 1.056 to 1.001 in less than 72 hours. I pulled it inside and let it age in the primary for about 3.5 months before kegging.

It finished with a very nice tartness, that over time is turning more and more sour. It has strong granny smith apple and pear notes. I put a few bottles into competition back in December and it scored a 39.

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Sounds great! I could definitely understand how a couple more months of aging could help it out. I'm going to be bottling/bottle conditioning for everyone's knowledge, and corking/caging at least half of the product probably.

Has anyone used an Orval culture as primary, or is this not advisable? If using it for the secondary fermentation as stated in Brew Like a Monk, what would be the process here? Actually racking to a secondary with the new yeast? The book states (short version): Yeast pitched @ 52, may rise to 72, 4 days. 3 weeks @ 59 degrees with new yeast (including brett) and dry hop with Styrian Goldings. Refermentation in the bottle for 5 weeks. Not really trying to make an Orval clone, just wondering if this process could yield nice results for me, the Home Brewer.

Thanks again everyone!

Dann,

The low abv, along with the bottle containing what damn near looked like a white labs vial in the bottom of the bottle, is why I went with the Dark White instead of the flagship or the Hiver.

I wasn't really sure during the ferment what kind of bugs/yeast I really had. The beer never threw any kind of pellicle, or showed any other signs of being sick...The yeast actually flocced out beautifully and left a super clear beer. The beer has started to get quite sour over time though, and the main detraction from the beer in the comp I put it in was that it was too aggressively sour.
I'm planning on reentering the beer into comp, but it will be under sour instead of saison.

lowtones84 said:

Has anyone used an Orval culture as primary, or is this not advisable? If using it for the secondary fermentation as stated in Brew Like a Monk, what would be the process here? Actually racking to a secondary with the new yeast? The book states (short version): Yeast pitched @ 52, may rise to 72, 4 days. 3 weeks @ 59 degrees with new yeast (including brett) and dry hop with Styrian Goldings. Refermentation in the bottle for 5 weeks. Not really trying to make an Orval clone, just wondering if this process could yield nice results for me, the Home Brewer.

Thanks again everyone!

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You can use the orval dregs in secondary to get more brett flavors. If you use the orval dregs as the primary fermenting yeast it will be a lot more subdued.

I have a bottle of orval sitting in the fridge right now that I am going to try to culture. Mr roommates are biology majors so I'm having them get me some petri dishes inoculation loop and and smaller flask. I'm going to plate out the dregs and see if I can separate out the sacch. brett. and whatever else I can find. I'm going to make a good sized starter from any brett I culture and pitch it with some lacto into a one gallon jug let it funk for about a month then pitch that gallon into a batch of brown ale I have fermenting right now.

I'm interested in what I'm going to find on my plates.

ReverseApacheMaster said:

You can use the orval dregs in secondary to get more brett flavors. If you use the orval dregs as the primary fermenting yeast it will be a lot more subdued.

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So I know it's not usually advisable to rack to secondary while the beer is still fermenting, but would I do that in this case? I don't secondary often, but if I'm going to get fermentation out of the brett wouldn't it be necessary? Or will the brett take care of some sugars that the primary strain wouldn't?

Speaking of primary strains, if I were to use orval as secondary, would I want to use a "clean" ale yeast as the primary yeast, or a belgian or saison yeast keeping in mind that I'm looking for something along the lines of a funky saison?

Thanks!

lowtones84 said:

So I know it's not usually advisable to rack to secondary while the beer is still fermenting, but would I do that in this case? I don't secondary often, but if I'm going to get fermentation out of the brett wouldn't it be necessary? Or will the brett take care of some sugars that the primary strain wouldn't?

Speaking of primary strains, if I were to use orval as secondary, would I want to use a "clean" ale yeast as the primary yeast, or a belgian or saison yeast keeping in mind that I'm looking for something along the lines of a funky saison?

Thanks!

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1) Brett ferments more complex sugars that sacchromyces cannot.
2) If you really want to clone Orval, use WLP510 for the primary and built up bottle dregs for the secondary.

lowtones84 said:

So I know it's not usually advisable to rack to secondary while the beer is still fermenting, but would I do that in this case? I don't secondary often, but if I'm going to get fermentation out of the brett wouldn't it be necessary? Or will the brett take care of some sugars that the primary strain wouldn't?

Speaking of primary strains, if I were to use orval as secondary, would I want to use a "clean" ale yeast as the primary yeast, or a belgian or saison yeast keeping in mind that I'm looking for something along the lines of a funky saison?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

It depends on what kind of beer you want. If you are trying to do an all brett beer then you probably don't want to do a secondary. Just leave it all in primary. All brett fermentations typically only have hints of brett flavors and retain a lot of characteristics of clean beers because the brett won't superattenuate. It will drop out around 80-90%. It won't go bone dry.

If you want to make an Orval-like beer or something where it is dry and the brett flavor is more pronounced, then you can still leave it all in the primary but if you prefer transferring to secondary you can, but pitch a belgian sacc strain to ferment then add the orval dregs to develop some brett flavors. You could do the same thing with a clean ale yeast or a saison yeast. If you want a funky saison I would pitch the saison yeast and the dregs at the same time but you could pitch the saison strain and then add the dregs later.