All-Brett still going

Brewed a simple recipe beer (2-row, aromatic, acid, Pale LME) to 1.055, and fermented with WLP650 (Brett-B). Made a large starter and pitched.

Seemed to stop and clear at 1.018 after 2 weeks. It was too sweet for me so I thought I would add some other yeast to get it lower. At 4 weeks, still at 1.018 I racked it off the cake (but then decided to add back about a quarter of the cake) and an active starter of PacMan. One week later it was down to 1.010, stayed there for the next week (now at 6 weeks), but it was cloudy.

I added gelatin to try and clear it so I could bottle. 2 weeks later it's still cloudy, looks active (some yeast columns in the wort, and airlock activity every couple of minutes), some 'bits' forming on the surface, and the gravity is now 1.009.

That's 8 weeks. I thought Brett was supposed to be done in 4.

I assume I upset the yeast balance when I racked and added the PacMan, and now I have traditional Brett secondary fermentation. Tastes great, I really want to bottle this. How long do you think I need to wait. I've already changed my brewing plans to move up a couple of Pale Ales in place of my next All-Brett (don't want to tie up all the fermenters), and currently hoping to be able to bottle in about 7 weeks time.

I have never heard of brett finishing in four weeks. The earliest I've read is eight weeks, and that was from Vinnie at Russian River. I have no reason to doubt his expertise on the subject.

If you are seeing cloudy beer, airlock bubbling and gravity still decreasing you have three solid reasons why you should not bottle it.

I would wait eight weeks minimum but definitely using stable gravity readings as the sole indication that it is time to bottle.

ReverseApacheMaster said:

I have never heard of brett finishing in four weeks. The earliest I've read is eight weeks, and that was from Vinnie at Russian River. I have no reason to doubt his expertise on the subject.

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I've never talked to Vinnie, but from everything I have read, or seen posted, when using Brett as the primary yeast it acts similarly to Sac.

In this particular beer, it was stable from week 2 to week 4 at 1.018 and had cleared. Based on everything I know about brewing, I would have said it was done.

I just don't like sweet beers so I added some PacMan, which seemed to start it off again. I thought the PacMan had done it's work at 6 weeks so used Gelatin to clear it.

I think the Brett has gotten a second wind and is starting to munch on the unfermentable sugars. I'd like to be able to bottle in a couple of months; but not sure it will be finished.

I recently had a beer with brett that was considered "green" but it was still delicious. In an interview, the brewer said:

I was also intrigued by a cryptic line in Chris White’s book Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation: “the average [Brett] strain can [develop the proper flavor profile] in about five weeks with the proper conditions.” Brett, notoriously slow acting, working that quickly?


You can read the whole blog post here: http://thenewschoolbrewblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/new-brew-odyssey-harnessing-young-brett.html#more

Calder said:

I've never talked to Vinnie, but from everything I have read, or seen posted, when using Brett as the primary yeast it acts similarly to Sac.

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This really depends on the pitch rate, if you dont build an adequate amount of yeast you will see and under-attenuating beer that slowly finishes out

How much did you build up the yeast, and how old was the brett pack when you used it?

ryane said:

This really depends on the pitch rate, if you dont build an adequate amount of yeast you will see and under-attenuating beer that slowly finishes out

How much did you build up the yeast, and how old was the brett pack when you used it?

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I built up a starter that I used on several beers; added some to secondary of a Flanders along with the other bugs, added some to the secondary of a Biere De Garde, and used some in a couple of ciders. Kept decanting and topping up each time I used it. Probably pitched about an inch of yeast in the bottom of a gallon jug.

Looked at it today, and it looks like it is starting to slow and clear. See what happens over the next few weeks.

Chiming in a little late but I posted a reply to Brett flavors in primary and secondary and touched on attenuation some. It's not the full story but it is what we are seeing at Crooked Stave. head over to https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/understanding-brett-flavors-298943/#post3734990 to see the responce