Question on a Brett Saison

I brewed a saison 4 weeks ago today and used the East Coast Yeast Farm House saison blend (saison yeast/brett) to ferment. I checked the gravity last week and it was down to 1.006 so I know I am safe to bottle. Would it be fine to bottle now or will the brett work better if it bulk ages a bit longer. I only have it in my bucket fermenter now and don't have another carboy free, so I'd need to keep it in the bucket or bottle soon. I haven't made a brett beer before so I'm not sure what will work best.

I'm wondering the same thing, I picked up a vial of the White Labs American Farmhouse with Brett and was thinking that the Brett would need more time to do it's thing. I was planning on 2-3 wks in the primary and another month or two in the secondary but I'd love to hear what the voices of experience have to say.

How do I get my hands on that East Coast Yeast?

Also, typically Brett laced beers sit for months before bottling.

If I'm not mistaken, Al uses Facebook exclusively. His page can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/East-Coast-Yeast/168646113149281

I'm am curious to know the answer to this as well, being that I'm planning on doing a Saison-Brett in the coming months.

The brett will develop fine in the bottle. Are you sure you're safe to bottle at 1.006?

I asked Al at ECY and he said as long as it is under 1.01 it should be fine to bottle. Do you think different? I will test it again before I bottle (and I know brett goes slow), but it sounds like it should be ok.

jbrookeiv said:

How do I get my hands on that East Coast Yeast?

Also, typically Brett laced beers sit for months before bottling.

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I ordered it from Princeton Homebrew (described on the ECY facebook). No shipping during the summer unfortunately.

Do Brett beers develop better in bulk though? Or will aging in the bottle allow it to continue to develop similarly?

My two saisons I've brewed with his saison yeast ended up at 1.003. It contains a portion of wyeast 3711 which is notorious for finishing in the very low digits. Just bottle it in good glass to be on the safe side.

I've never done side by sides on bulk vs bottle aged brett profile development, but I've bottled some with brett pretty young and they turned out really nice. The only thing I can really think of that would be different would be the oxygen levels, maybe the extra oxygen in the bulk aging gives a different character?

The biggest issue with aging in the bottle is of course bottle bombs. Personally I would let it sit as long as possible in bulk before bottling. Both brett and saison strains are very attenuative so it could easily get down closer to 1.000 over time. At a minimum I would bottle it in heavy bottles just to be sure but if it overcarbonates in the bottle it's going to have an impact on the flavor even if it doesn't cause bottles to blow.

ReverseApacheMaster said:

The biggest issue with aging in the bottle is of course bottle bombs. Personally I would let it sit as long as possible in bulk before bottling. Both brett and saison strains are very attenuative so it could easily get down closer to 1.000 over time. At a minimum I would bottle it in heavy bottles just to be sure but if it overcarbonates in the bottle it's going to have an impact on the flavor even if it doesn't cause bottles to blow.

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Think it will be okay sitting in the bucket vs carboy though? Or do I need yet another carboy?

I've bottled a similar beer, but just lowered the amount of priming sugar. It had to age in the bottle for a while though, I tried one bottle after a couple months and the brett had an odd off-flavor from re-activating again. Six months later I tasted a bottle and it was a great beer again after it cleaned up after itself. I noticed the same off flavor while I had a Matilda clone batch aging in a carboy about 3 months after I pitched the brett and just before the pellicle formed - me checking the gravity with a thief could have introduced oxygen, hence sparking the pellicle. The Matilda clone now is a great beer. These were both brett from Orval dregs, so I can't speak to other brett strains. I'm usually a "set and forget" person when it comes to bugs, but I'm glad I found this out through experience.

The pellicle should keep the oxygen out enough in a bucket, but it will develop faster, aka make more acetic acid in the increased presence of oxygen, so I wouldn't age it a year like I would in glass. How much shorter, I have no idea. I want to test this out in the future, but up untill this point I always play it safe and get yet another carboy...

The pellicle won't keep the oxygen out of the beer in a bucket. The pellicle only provides some protection against surface O2 but the plastic of the bucket is permeable. If you're going to age the beer you'll want a carboy. Even if you don't get acetic, the beer will oxidize if aged too long.

I know plastic is obviously more permeable than glass, but are there studies that test permeability of the plastic in a bucket compared to the plastic in a better bottle? Many people have secondaried beers with one or more of brett, lacto, pedio in plastic with great success. Take Oldsock for example, he uses lots of better bottles and has made tons of great funky beers in them. Cantillon, Russian River, etc age in oak barrels, which far are more permeable than glass/stainless.

bourgeoisbee said:

I know plastic is obviously more permeable than glass, but are there studies that test permeability of the plastic in a bucket compared to the plastic in a better bottle? Many people have secondaried beers with one or more of brett, lacto, pedio in plastic with great success. Take Oldsock for example, he uses lots of better bottles and has made tons of great funky beers in them. Cantillon, Russian River, etc age in oak barrels, which far are more permeable than glass/stainless.

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Depending on the barrel sizes used, compared to a 20L (roughly 5gal) HDPE plastic fermentor, the permeability of the plastic allows a LOT more oxygen to diffuse into a given volume of beer, for instance (roughly):

* 415 times and 256 times more than the large (~5,300gal) and small (~2,200gal) wooden tuns that Rodenbach uses, respectively

* 26 times and 10 times more than 80gal and 10gal oak barrels, respectively

*for the hell of it... 13 times and 2,200 times more than a 5gal glass carboy with a silicon stopper and a wooden stopper, respectively

*and to get things from a slightly different perspective, these 3 things have roughly the same permeability: 5gal glass carboy w/ silicone stopper, 10gal oak barrel, and a 53gal HDPE plastic fermentation tank (same plastic as an "Ale Pail")

As for the Better Bottles, which are made of PET rather than HDPE plastic, the manufacturer claims that there is negligible/no oxygen permeability. But MANY people have raised serious doubts about the veracity of these claims, and still more have suggested, with some degree of evidence, that it somehow becomes increasingly permeable over time.

As far as I know though, there are no completely reliable figures available to substantiate anyone's claims on the matter, let alone allow it to be directly compared to pretty much every other kind of fermentor, for which the numbers not only exist, but are widely available.

Basically, a Better Bottle may be (and I would even say probably is) a decent choice, but I prefer being able to calculate roughly how much gas exchange is occurring in order to be able to be able to modify it in a deliberate manner, should I choose, or even adapt recipes to new conditions. But I would never, ever, use a HDPE plastic bucket (or anything made of that plastic smaller than 2bbl) to ferment a sour/wild beer. So for now, I stick with glass carboys and do what I can to control the oxygen based on what I'm making.