Recipe Advice needed: Brett Quadrupel

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PaulC

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I've been brewing extract and partial mash style beer for a few years now, and recently decided to step it up by moving to All grain. I purchased a 10 gallon setup from a fellow HBT'er and I'd like to try to formulate a recipe to 'commemorate' the new setup. I'll cut my teeth on using it with a more simple recipe kit first, but I want to make a cellar-able quadrupel as second or third batch through the new brewhouse.

My goals for this brew were: complex, aromatic, spicy, estery, moderate hoppiness, very dark color and ~12% abv. I want to extended age this beer, maybe in an oak barrel. I started with a well-reviewed recipe for a Westy-12 Belgian quadrupel and worked from there.

As I was working on the recipe in Brewmaster's brewbuilder, I noticed that the Trappist ale yeast I was planning to use was only getting to around 9.5% and leaving my FG a little higher than I wanted (~1.025). I've never built a recipe before, and I'm guessing brewbuilder isn't going to be 100% accurate, but I wanted a bit stronger and drier than what the recipe was leaving me. I started to look at higher attenuating yeasts which might still be in style and began thinking about Brett B.

I've never brewed a Brett beer before, so I'm looking for opinions on whether you all think this will work or if I'm best just going as far as the trappist yeast can go and calling it a day. Here's the recipe - I'm totally open to suggestions on all of this, I realize it may be overly complex.

I'm also looking for feedback on fermentation schedule. How far should I let the trappist yeast go before pitching the brett? Any guesses on flavor profile? Is this whole idea terrible?

Thanks for your time!

10 Gallon batch
OG - 1.095
FG - 1.017
IBU - 31.2
SRM - 43.6
ABV - 10.22 (I would really like this to end up around 12%)

Grain Bill:
Ingredient Name --------------------------- Amount
Belgian Pilsner ----------------------------- 12 lbs, 0 oz
Belgian Pale Ale ----------------------------12 lbs, 0 oz
D-45 Amber Candi Syrup --------------------2 lbs, 0 oz
Caramel Vienne -----------------------------2 lbs, 0 oz
D-180 Dark Candi Syrup ---------------------2 lbs, 0 oz
Gambrinus Dark Munich --------------------- 1 lbs, 0 oz
Franco-Belges Kiln Coffee -------------------1 lbs, 0 oz
Special B -----------------------------------1 lbs, 0 oz
Aromatic -----------------------------------1 lbs, 0 oz
Caramel Munich -----------------------------1 lbs, 0 oz
Crisp Chocolate Malt ------------------------1 lbs, 0 oz
Northern Brewer Pellets ----------------------2 oz @ 90 mins
Hersbrucker, German Pellets ------------------2 oz @ 20 mins
Styrian Golding Pellets -----------------------2 oz @ 20 mins

Primary Fermentation
Wyeast Labs Trappist Blend - Private Collection (I still need to calc starter size)

Secondary Fermentation
White Labs Brettanomyces bruxellensis

----------------------------------------------------------
 
That yeast is good to about 12%. Ignore what Brewbuilder says.

Recipe looks complex.

Mash in mid to high 140s, you want the yeast to go thru it.

Ferment high (mid 70s).

With mashing low, that yeast should take it down to somewhere around 1.010 - 1.012, with a decent starter, high temps, and time (could take a couple of months).

I recommend you just add the Brett to half of it and do a comparison.

You might want to carb with a champagne yeast when the time comes. I'd let it go a few months in the fermenter before bottling.
 
brewbuilder is probably just using a generic 75% attenuation, but if you want 12% you're likely going to need the brett with that build or add more malt. asking for 96% attenuation out of sacchro on a big beer is an awful tall task

that seems like a lot of dark malt for a quad.

the mash should be fine in the 15gal tun, but you can always make it a lil thicker if its too close for comfort. 1.3 instead of 1.5 will be fine
 
Not gonna work. Dumping Brett into a 10 or 12% beer already fermented is most likely not going to work. WL/WY cultures probably can't get past 7%-8%, Brett has bad alcohol tolerance typically. Sorry to break your hopes
 
Not gonna work. Dumping Brett into a 10 or 12% beer already fermented is most likely not going to work. WL/WY cultures probably can't get past 7%-8%, Brett has bad alcohol tolerance typically. Sorry to break your hopes

ur thinking of lacto/pedio, brett is good to like 18%
 
Thanks for all of the responses guys.

Definitely not breaking my hopes on anything here, I'm just brainstorming trying to get a recipe that will work. The community has vastly more experience than I do so I'm just trying to tap into that before I buy a recipe that isn't going to work. So, I'm happy to get all of your feedback, even if that feedback is that it isn't going to work.

All that said, I think I will probably cut out some of the dark specialty grains and go with something a little simpler, and maybe make up some gravity points with base malt.

I also think the idea to split the 10 gallons into two batches, pitching brett into only one is a good idea. Will give me a great basis for comparison.

However, I did some more reading on the Wyeast trappist blend yeast I mentioned above, that Wyeast blend 3789PC actually has Brett B in it. I am debating using that or just the standard 3787. Anyone here with experience using the 3789PC strain?

Wyeast says the following about it:
Wyeast 3789-PC Trappist Blend
Beer Styles: Belgian Specialty Ale, Belgian Pale Ale, Flanders Red, Oud Bruin
Profile: A unique blend of Belgian Saccharomyces and
Brettanomyces for emulating Trappist style beer from the Florenville region in Belgium. Phenolics, mild fruitiness and complex spicy notes develop with increased fermentation temperatures. Subdued but classic Brett character.
 
dcp27 said:
ur thinking of lacto/pedio, brett is good to like 18%

NOT at all. Why do you not see any lambics above 5-6%? Nothing brett-ey is ever above 8%. Brett is terrible alcohol tolerance wise. Look up the numbers on Wyeasts website, and that's optimistic
 
Wyeast says 12% for Brett B:
Wyeast 5112

and 12% for Brett L
Wyeast 5526

I personally thought they could survive in higher ABV than that, but if even those numbers are optimistic, sounds like 10% is a reasonable conservative estimate?
 
NOT at all. Why do you not see any lambics above 5-6%? Nothing brett-ey is ever above 8%. Brett is terrible alcohol tolerance wise. Look up the numbers on Wyeasts website, and that's optimistic

you don't see lambics over 5-6% cuz of bacterial limitations not brett. brett has very good alcohol tolerance and certainly not lower than sacchro. wild brews lists it at 18% and i just brought a quad over 12% with it
 
Brett has a high alcohol tolerance level. Why do you think wineries are scared of it. It can infect 13%+ wines.

It is the Lacto and Pedio that are limited by the alcohol level. They are done around 8%. That's why you rarely see (I wont say never as I'm sure there is an exception out there) Sours above about 6%.
 
Hey OP, why not simplify the recipe (do you really need 9 malts?). most quads have fairly simple malt bills like pilsner or pale malt and the complexity comes from the Belgian candi syrup. From what I've read there is a solid recipe for something along the lines of Westy 12 on this thread (the traditional, not the new world): https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f73/pious-westvleteren-12-style-quad-multiple-147815/
 
I agree with kaz, I was about to brew this recipe with lower IBU's and add some dregs from one of my lambics. The highest alcohol sour I've had was Upland's Gilgamesh which is 10.5%
 
Calder said:
Brett has a high alcohol tolerance level. Why do you think wineries are scared of it. It can infect 13%+ wines.

It is the Lacto and Pedio that are limited by the alcohol level. They are done around 8%. That's why you rarely see (I wont say never as I'm sure there is an exception out there) Sours above about 6%.

Calder,

Sure, that's in the wild with many strains, a few are going to be high tolerance and survive. Think of the antibiotic effect. But when you are introducing a single Wyeast/WL culture, they don't get pass 8-9% ABV. All their cultures are weak. If you want to use Brett, talk with Al B of ECY, I talked to him and he thinks their stuff can get up to ~13%. There's no reason to test Brett like that, you could get some off esters. You could ferment with Brett in this beer, let it clunk out, centrifuge it if you work in a lab, and add sacch. Best way to do it without adding too much funk.

Lacto clunks out faster, Pedio can get up thrre
 

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