Bottling with Brett

I'm sure this is buried in at least one thread on this board but I couldn't find anything. I've read a bit about beers that are bottle conditioned with brett (Biere de Mars for example). Is this practical for a homebrewer? Won't the brett eat through residual sugars as well as the priming sugar and create bottle bombs? Or do you not need to add priming sugar if you add brett at bottling?

Anyone tried this out?

I'm planning on trying this with one of my next beers, I was planning on using some priming sugar but now you have me thinking...

I've done some work with Brett L, and I think the safer bet would be to pitch the Brett into the secondary, wait to let it drop the FG (although it doesn't seem to attenuate that severely without other bugs, there are alot of threads on this) for a few weeks, months, whatever, then prime and bottle like normal. There isn't (to my knowledge) a way to judge how much residual sugar they will eat. Just my .02

Give the link a shot. It should answer your questions. Use heavy glass!!

http://www.babblebelt.com/newboard/thread.html?tid=1108752780&th=1263396836&pg=1&tpg=1&add=1

Quick one, if not being too picky about carbonation and using a combo of heavy glass and pvc for bottling... should I:

a) Add Brett to the bottling bucket, leave it for 24 hours and bottle
or
b) Add a tiny dreg of Brett to each bottle?

I am working on some stock ale with Brett C.

I have used a pipette of about .5 ml slurry in each bottle. Seems like with the tiny amount you need this ensures that you will have some Brett in every bottle.

NYCBrewGuy said:

I've read a bit about beers that are bottle conditioned with brett (Biere de Mars for example). Is this practical for a homebrewer? Won't the brett eat through residual sugars as well as the priming sugar and create bottle bombs? Or do you not need to add priming sugar if you add brett at bottling?

Click to expand...

yes, the brett will chew through the residual sugars and can prime the bottle. the unknown here is how much of the residual sugar will it chew through, and how quickly. since 2 points = 1 vol of CO2, a 1.005 beer that gets chewed down to 1.000 should be fully carbed... but there is no way of knowing (without a lot of experience) whether the beer will in fact go down to 1.000. if it stops at 1.003 you'll end up with an under-carbed beer. if it goes down to 0.998 you might end up with bombs.

pro brewers at places like Orval can bottle condition with brett because they know exactly what their brett is going to do in that beer that they've brewed consistently thousands of times. for the homebrewer, it's going to be a bit of a gamble. use thick bottles, prime to 2.5 using your best guess of how low the brett will go, and pray to the brewing gods.

JKaranka said:

Quick one, if not being too picky about carbonation and using a combo of heavy glass and pvc for bottling... should I:

a) Add Brett to the bottling bucket, leave it for 24 hours and bottle
or
b) Add a tiny dreg of Brett to each bottle?

I am working on some stock ale with Brett C.

Click to expand...

a-v2: Add Brett to the bottling bucket and bottle right away. there is no point in waiting 24 hours, that won't be enough time for the brett to do anything.

Cool. Should I give it a stirring to distribute the Brett?

JKaranka said:

Cool. Should I give it a stirring to distribute the Brett?

Click to expand...

yup, a gentle stir should get the brett distributed. alternately, add it once you've started filling the bottling bucket. if you place the incoming tube parallel against an edge, you should get some swirling action. that movement will do a fine job of distributing the brett, along with any boiled priming sugar you might be adding (just don't add the brett to the our sugar only, wait for it to be diluted by the beer first).