Tart Guava Brett Beer

This was an experiment that turned out surprisingly well. I was inspired after reading American Sour Beers by Michael Tonsmeire. What a read! Anyways... I split the pre-boil wort into two separate kettles. One half of the wort would receive the Lacto, the other, Brett. I reserved 2.5g for the Lacto half. I brought that half to a boil and cooled to 100F to pitch. The other portion of wort was reserved for the Brett, and boiled down to 3gal for 60min. All of the hops went into the Brett portion of the wort. Both portions came out to 2.5gal and were fermented separately at first, then combined with 1L of guava nectar for secondary fermentation.

Ingredients:
6lb - 2 Row
1lb - Victory Malt
1lb - Melanoiden Malt
0.5lb - Flaked Oats
2lb - Acid Malt (added mid-mash)

0.5oz Amarillo 60min
1oz Amarillo 5min
1oz Amarillo 0min
2oz Citra Dry Hop 1 week

1L Guava Nectar (secondary)

Mashed @ 153F for 45min withholding acid malt, and then 30min after adding acid malt.
After all runnings collected, withheld 2.5gal of wort for Lacto, brought to boil and cooled to 100F to pitch.
Boiled rest of wort with hops 60min, chilled to 70F to pitch.

After 2 weeks in separate 3gal carboys, combined and transferred onto 1L of Guava Nectar in a 5gal carboy.

Dry-hopped for last 7 days, after gravity seemed stable.

Here is a picture of the Guava Nectar:


And the final product:

Sour noob here, whats the benefit of splitting up the batch for primary ferm between the two bacteria cultures? I've been wanting to get in to sours lately and don't really know where to start.

Thanks!

TheOrlandoGuy said:

Sour noob here, whats the benefit of slipping up the batch for primary ferm between the two bacteria cultures? I've been wanting to get in to sours lately and don't really know where to start.

Thanks!

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Not sure exactly what you are asking but doing a side by side secondary of brett vs lacto will have very different results. The brett wont get entirely sour. It will develop that bracing tartness that brettd beers are known for. The lacto one, will get a soft, pleasing sourness.

If you are just starting getting into sours, I would recommend building up some dregs from some of your favorite sour beers and adding those to something you have fermented out with a sacch yeast strain

also, get a separate set of all plastic transferring / sampling equipment for your sours

If you pitched into secadary with Brett you don't need to build up any dregs/cultures you can add right in. If you are pitching into primary with dregs than yes you should build them up. Brettanomcyes isn't known for sour at all more funky and used in primary is more of a clean tasting beer. In secadary is where you get more of your funky taste since Brett eats dead yeasts. Keep in mind if you are building up Brett to pitch into primary fermentation and use a stir plate the Brett will grow 4 times the normal pitching rate as any saccamyces yeast. Keep in mind with using Brett in primary takes normally around 6 weeks if used in secondary takes a minimum of 6 months


Also recommend pitching the lactobacillus before any yeast to better give it a heads start. I normally build up a culture of lacto by looking at what strains I'm using and what temps they like. When using lacto dry hop only no hops in kettle lacto is susceptible to even 1-2 ibu's and can make your lacto stall. If you are using 100% lactobacillus cultures and pitch into a carboy will only sour your beer not ferment it. You will need a wild/saccamyces yeast to ferment out.

Bobcikja Could you elaborate why you withheld the Acid malt till the end of the mash and was your Mash PH at normal range before you added the acid malt and what was the PH drop after you did so. Thanx.

m00ps said:

Not sure exactly what you are asking but doing a side by side secondary of brett vs lacto will have very different results. The brett wont get entirely sour. It will develop that bracing tartness that brettd beers are known for. The lacto one, will get a soft, pleasing sourness.

If you are just starting getting into sours, I would recommend building up some dregs from some of your favorite sour beers and adding those to something you have fermented out with a sacch yeast strain

also, get a separate set of all plastic transferring / sampling equipment for your sours

Click to expand...

Sorry, typo. I was wondering what the "benefit" would be of fermenting those two separately, versus just throwing both in to the secondary after the beer has fermented out. I'm in the process of buying new equipment for sours, but there seems to be so many ways to "sour" a beer, I'm having trouble understanding how I should do this..

1) Should I ferment a "clean" beer like normal in my "clean" equipment, then rack to a secondary where I sour the fermented beer with brett/sacc/lacto/pedio?

2) Or...should I begin the souring process in the primary with sacc/brett/lacto, and go straight to bottling afterwards? Also...isn't Sacc a yeast strand? Meaning, should I be duel-pitching sacc w/ anther "clean" yeast strand like a saison?

Thanks for your patience...I really would love to start with sours!

I would ferment it all in one with regards to keeping the brett and bug separate. Whenever you are using souring bugs, its always a good idea to have brett in the mix because it can help clean up some unwanted byproducts and IME, prevents your beer from going what is commonly known as a "sick" stage.

I usually ferment a beer like usual, and then put it into a secondary with my souring blend to leave for a while. But I have started doing mixed fermentations with brett (no sour bugs) where I pitch everythign together. This helps things move along faster

and yeah saccharomyces is just any "brewers yeast", including belgians and stuff

m00ps said:

I would ferment it all in one with regards to keeping the brett and bug separate. Whenever you are using souring bugs, its always a good idea to have brett in the mix because it can help clean up some unwanted byproducts and IME, prevents your beer from going what is commonly known as a "sick" stage.

I usually ferment a beer like usual, and then put it into a secondary with my souring blend to leave for a while. But I have started doing mixed fermentations with brett (no sour bugs) where I pitch everythign together. This helps things move along faster

and yeah saccharomyces is just any "brewers yeast", including belgians and stuff

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Gotcha - so for this specific recipe...it looks like he's just using bugs (WLP644 Brett Trois). Does that mean I should ferment primarily in the "sour" bucket? with no need for a secondary?

you can just do the entire thing in a primary. I mainly only transfer to a secondary to clear up my fermentor for another batch and to minimize headsapce since my secondaries are 5gal vs 6gal primaries

Also please keep in mind Brett trois does not actually have brettanomcyes in it. It's just a saccamyces (Brewers) yeast and has no bugs. So I would ferment in primary.

https://m.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/comments/2ooic7/brett_trois_contains_no_brett/

klowneyy said:

Also please keep in mind Brett trois does not actually have brettanomcyes in it. It's just a saccamyces (Brewers) yeast and has no bugs. So I would ferment in primary.

https://m.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/comments/2ooic7/brett_trois_contains_no_brett/

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The post you referenced is about omega yeast labs (OYL)'s brett blend, not whitelabs' (WLP) brett blend.

TheOrlandoGuy said:

The post you referenced is about omega yeast labs (OYL)'s brett blend, not whitelabs' (WLP) brett blend.

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Here's a link for white labs calling it a saccamyces (Brewers) yeast not a wild yeast. Please note as they even changed the name from Brett trois to saccamyces trois

Also attached a picture where they state formally know as brettanomcyes

It's no longer consider a brettanomcyes culture but a normal saccamyces

http://www.talkbeer.com/community/threads/brett-trois-contains-no-brett.18018/

http://www.whitelabs.com/yeast/wlp644-saccharomyces-bruxellensis-trois

View attachment 1447894062037.jpg

klowneyy said:

Here's a link for white labs calling it a saccamyces (Brewers) yeast not a wild yeast. Please note as they even changed the name from Brett trois to saccamyces trois

Also attached a picture where they state formally know as brettanomcyes

It's no longer consider a brettanomcyes culture but a normal saccamyces

http://www.talkbeer.com/community/threads/brett-trois-contains-no-brett.18018/

http://www.whitelabs.com/yeast/wlp644-saccharomyces-bruxellensis-trois

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Ok man, that's good info. I was just indicating what your quoted article was saying. I read it.

TheOrlandoGuy said:

Ok man, that's good info. I was just indicating what your quoted article was saying. I read it.

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Understandable buddy. I just wanted to make sure you know what you are using. Hope your beer comes out great! Sorry if I seemed rude in anyway shape or form. I'm always happy to share my knowledge and help as much as possible.

im still on the fence on the wlp644 brett trois debate. To me, if it tastes, ferments, and behaves like a brett strain, I would just treat it as much. Its somehow capable of making a pellicle too

Its kinda like people telling me a tomato is technically a fruit. I dont care, Im still gonna consider it a vegetable. Its going in savory dishes, Im not topping my deserts with it

That's fine if you do but Nobody classifies organisms based on their organoleptic properties.

Here's a link with a run down of every single culture of saccamyces they found in Brett trois as you can see no brettanomcyes

http://embracethefunk.com/2014/12/11/brettanomyces

Here's a pdf where white labs goes into more details. HIGHLY RECOMMEND READING!!!!! Should answer all your questions.

http://www.whitelabs.com/files/644_Explanation.pdf

TheOrlandoGuy said:

Sour noob here, whats the benefit of splitting up the batch for primary ferm between the two bacteria cultures? I've been wanting to get in to sours lately and don't really know where to start.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

The benefits of doing split batches is so that you can sour one with lacto and use Brett in the other one. Lacto is susceptible to even 1-2 ibu's and can make your lacto stall. And Brett does great things with hops like breaking down the enzymes of hops and changing the tastes. So by doing a split batch you are able to make a sour/funky hoppy beer instead of having two separate beers. One a funky hoppy beer and the other a dry hopped sour.

m00ps said:

im still on the fence on the wlp644 brett trois debate. To me, if it tastes, ferments, and behaves like a brett strain, I would just treat it as much. Its somehow capable of making a pellicle too

Its kinda like people telling me a tomato is technically a fruit. I dont care, Im still gonna consider it a vegetable. Its going in savory dishes, Im not topping my deserts with it

Click to expand...

You shouldn't treat strains like they are Saccharomyces or Brettanomyces. You should treat them individually as to what benefits that particular strain the most in reference to what you want out of your end product. Nobody treats Brett B and C the same, nor do they treat saison strains like lager strains. Not to mention the sheer genetic diversity within species, especially Brett

Thanks for all the response! I will clarify my thought process for why I added the acidulated malt after the mash, and why I fermented lacto and trois separately.

For the malt, I was concerned with mash ph. I wasn't relying on the acid malt for any gravity, only lowering the ph of the mash. I had read that lacto and brett like an acidic environment. I can't remember exactly where I read that, but it was either here on the forum or in American Sour Beers.

For splitting the batch, I did so for control and speed of fermentation. I performed two separate boils, the portion in which I pitched lacto received no hops, the other portion received all the hops. Hops inhibit lacto. Also, by splitting into two primary fermenters I could keep the lacto portion at a warmer temperature. I chose the yeast formerly known as brett trois because of its attenuation and the alleged fruity notes it produces. Using this method, a secondary fermenter is necessary to allow the gravity to stabilize. The guava juice will provide additional sugars which will lead to a secondary fermentation.

With this beer I wanted to create a tart beer that could be safely bottled in less time than a traditional sour beer. However, on second thought one could likely use the kettle sour method to achieve the same result, with the same control, using only 1 fermenter.

LOL^ bet you werent expecting anything after 7 months...