Brett in wine barrel aged french saison

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chadkarol

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So I brewed a French saison, and right now its in a barrel that I had soaking with white wine. The white wine flavor is a bit more intense than I had planned. I have a vial of white labs Brett yeast. Anyone have any thoughts if I just threw it in the barrel with the beer?
 
What kind of Brett is it? Brett l. will give a cherry pie tartness that would be good with a Saison. It will also give a lot of funky barnyard/horse blanket aroma and flavor as well. I say go for it. I would add a little DME to the barrel as well for the Brett to chew on. What gravity was the saison at when you put it in the barrel? Usually the Saison yeast is very attenuative and will make the beer incredibly dry so there wont be much food for the Brett.
 
rcsoccer said:
What kind of Brett is it? Brett l. will give a cherry pie tartness that would be good with a Saison. It will also give a lot of funky barnyard/horse blanket aroma and flavor as well. I say go for it. I would add a little DME to the barrel as well for the Brett to chew on. What gravity was the saison at when you put it in the barrel? Usually the Saison yeast is very attenuative and will make the beer incredibly dry so there wont be much food for the Brett.

It is wlp653. It had fermented down to 1.005. I do have a can of cherry purée. Maybe I'll throw that and the Brett in........ A cherry Brett French saison?
 
It is wlp653. It had fermented down to 1.005. I do have a can of cherry purée. Maybe I'll throw that and the Brett in........ A cherry Brett French saison?

Sounds good, but maybe you could add the Brett, wait a couple of months, then rack some of it out of the barrel and age it on cherries for about 2 months before bottling/kegging. How big is the barrel? How long has it been in the barrel?
 
It's just a five gallon barrel. It's been in there about a month now. I previously had it filled with whiskey and aged a porter in there a couple weeks and it turned out really good. White wine is more over powering this time around. Maybe because white wine and beer don't go together as we'll as whiskey or bourbon.
 
It is wlp653. It had fermented down to 1.005. I do have a can of cherry purée. Maybe I'll throw that and the Brett in........ A cherry Brett French saison?

I was wrong. It's actually WLP644. I ended up transferring to a carboy onto the cherry puree and pitched the Brett Trois. I'm a little worried because there's a lot of head space in the carboy. It's probably only 4 gallons in a 5 gallon carboy. Any thoughts if this will be an issue if I want to let it sit for a few months? If so, any suggestions on what to do?
 
chadkarol said:
I was wrong. It's actually WLP644. I ended up transferring to a carboy onto the cherry puree and pitched the Brett Trois. I'm a little worried because there's a lot of head space in the carboy. It's probably only 4 gallons in a 5 gallon carboy. Any thoughts if this will be an issue if I want to let it sit for a few months? If so, any suggestions on what to do?

You will be fine. The Yeasts will ferment the cherry and create a co2 blanket above the beer. The Brett may also throw a pellicle.

There's an exhaustive thread in this section of the forum about using 644, if you're interested.
 
You will be fine. The Yeasts will ferment the cherry and create a co2 blanket above the beer. The Brett may also throw a pellicle.

There's an exhaustive thread in this section of the forum about using 644, if you're interested.

That makes sense. Thanks for the info!
 
Bumping this to see how it came out?
I have an old Balcones Whisky barrel that I have used a few times now. I'm looking to throw some white wine in there and do the same thing that you did. How did the beer come out? did the wine flavor finally start to meld with the beer?

Thanks,
Mike
 
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