Brett Lacto mead project need sugar help

[seth8530]

Howdy all,

Just to give you an idea of what I have going on I am fermenting around 15-20 gallons of a sour gueze influenced mead. The plan is to use buckwheat honey to get an original gravity of 1.090 and then pitch lacto brevis ( I will most likely adjust the PH up to around 5.5 prior to pitching lacto). Once the PH drops down to around 3.5 I will pitch wyyeast 5526 for the brett and main fermentation component.

https://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_yeaststrain_detail.cfm?ID=147

However, if this was the whole story this would be a very short and simple story... The kicker is since I plan on making this as influenced by a gueze I plan on carbonating it and I need residual sugars to do that. So here is the deal Lactos is out since I can't really do dairy and brett eats maltodexterin. I think I want a final gravity of around 1.020 and I want to be able to bottle carbonate this bad boy.


So according to this thread https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/testing-fermentability-crystal-malt-208361/ certain kinds of crystal can have attenuation as low as 38% with sach. My question is, do you guys know anything about how brett will handle the crystal malt? Will it just plow straight on through it? Do you know of any other grain sugars that I could use would work well?

So, one of the limiting factors is that I want as much as my ferment able sugars to come from the honey. So, the lower the grains attenuation the better. I would plan on mashing at 158+ to try and reduce the fermentable sugars.. But, still I am really unsure of how the brett will handle the grain.. Does anyone here have any insight on on how far I could expect the brett to chow through the sugars?

Would a form of a forced fermentation test be the way to go? Ie, create and very rich 1.140+ SG crystal syrup mashed really high and then dilute down and to a fermentatable SG and let the brett chow on it and see how far it goes in a couple weeks and use that to judge how much I should add to the mead to get a good FG?

Any thoughts?

 

[estricklin]

With the lacto and brett in there, over time they are going to mow through almost anything fermentable I would imagine. When it comes time to bottle carb, just add some sugar as normal. Make sure it has dropped as far as it's possibly going to before bottling as with anyything, then use simple sugar to prime for bottle conditioning.

I dunno maybe I missed something in your post?

 

[seth8530]

A little bit, one of the things is that I am trying to use as little grain component as possible while still hitting a certain final gravity. I guess what I am trying to get at is if say S04 takes a certain kind of crystal down to 38% attenuation, do you have any idea what the brett would do? I am mainly trying to get a handle on how much sugar I have to make from crystal malt to hit a certain final gravity target.

 

[estricklin]

If your wanting a high final gravity with brett AND lacto, good luck because it will chew through almost anything.

 

[sweetcell]

brett will chew through the "unfermentable dextrines" in crystal malts. when they say those long-chain sugars are unfermentable, or only 38% fermentable, they mean by sacch.

i've read in several places that lacto in inhibited by alcohol levels around 8%. you'll be at 8% before you hit 1.020 so no need to worry about lacto taking you lower than that. it should be be out of the picture by then.

the only way you can be certain to end up with a 1.020 brew is to pasteurize it once you get to that gravity.

 

[seth8530]

But surely all of those sugars are not available to brett right? I guess Maybe a possible alternative idea would be to add the malt component once the mead was past the ABV tolerance of the brett and then throw in a very rigorous Sach yeast such as ec-1118 to finish up the ferment able sugars.

 

[TheZymurgist]

Sacc can only chew through sugars as complex as 3 chains, Brett can chew through up to 9 chains, so unless the majority of your fermentables are coming from the malt, and you mash really really high, the Brett is going to bring the gravity down unless it's inhibited by pH, alcohol, or you arrest fermentation. Your first post is slightly confusing, in that you first state you're talking about getting your OG from honey, and then you start talking about the addition of grain. Maybe post a recipe to clarify.

 

[seth8530]

Sure, so here is the current plan to clarify what I have in mind now.

Use honey to get an OG of around 1.110 ( 14% ABV potential)

Buffer the must with Potassium carbonate up from around 3.8 to around 5.5 so that the lacto has room to work.

Once the PH drops to around 3.5 ish pitch the brett starter and ferment up to around 9% ABV ( as soon as the brett is pitched start a strong ec-1118 starter on the stir plate).

Once the ABV reaches around 9 percent add in the strong ec-1118 starter. IE gravity of around 1.040.

Once the ABV reaches around 13-14% add the crystal syrup ( make sure the dilution does not drop abv below 13%) to hopefully ensure the brett does not come back to life and ferment the sugars that the ec-1118 can not ferment. Thus hopefully ending up with a brett sour mead with left over residual sugars by not permitting the brett to eat the complex sugars and allowing the sach to eat the fermentable crystal sugars. Then I would be able to bottle carbonate as well using the ec-1118 too.

Is this more clear now?

 

[sweetcell]

But surely all of those sugars are not available to brett right?

most, if not all, of those sugars will be available to brett. the stuff can digest the cellulose in wood.

I guess Maybe a possible alternative idea would be to add the malt component once the mead was past the ABV tolerance of the brett and then throw in a very rigorous Sach yeast such as ec-1118 to finish up the ferment able sugars.

brett is a problem in wine where ABV can be 15%. brett's alcohol tolerance is highly variable. it might poop out at 12%, or it might keep on going - slowly - for a while longer.

how about this for an idea: make a 1.120 must, pitch the brett (and lacto, if that's still part of the plan), let that go until whenever, pitch 1118 at some point, which will take the brew to somewhere around 18% assuming you've provided the right nutrients, etc. once the 1118 has finished, THAT should be high enough to inhibit the brett, then add the crystal syrup. wait several months to ensure that the brett hasn't reactivated. bottle.

Use honey to get an OG of around 1.110 ( 14% ABV potential)

fyi - based on what you assume your final gravity to be (can be under 1.000) and on some new research, 1.110 can yield almost 16% abv (source, applied calcs).

 

[seth8530]

most, if not all, of those sugars will be available to brett. the stuff can digest the cellulose in wood.


brett is a problem in wine where ABV can be 15%. brett's alcohol tolerance is highly variable. it might poop out at 12%, or it might keep on going - slowly - for a while longer.

how about this for an idea: make a 1.120 must, pitch the brett (and lacto, if that's still part of the plan), let that go until whenever, pitch 1118 at some point, which will take the brew to somewhere around 18% assuming you've provided the right nutrients, etc. once the 1118 has finished, THAT should be high enough to inhibit the brett, then add the crystal syrup. wait several months to ensure that the brett hasn't reactivated. bottle.


fyi - based on what you assume your final gravity to be (can be under 1.000) and on some new research, 1.110 can yield almost 16% abv (source, applied calcs).

So your major discontent with the plan is that you do not have a lot of faith in wyyeast's claim that the brett should peter out near 12%? My big deal is that I really do not want this to turn into an absurdly high alcohol mead. So, that is why I am kind of wanting this guy to be around 13% once it has been diluted back down with the crystal syrup.

I might call wyyeast today and ask them about the expeted 12% tolerance on their brett strain and see how close it is.

 

[TheZymurgist]

So your major discontent with the plan is that you do not have a lot of faith in wyyeast's claim that the brett should peter out near 12%? My big deal is that I really do not want this to turn into an absurdly high alcohol mead. So, that is why I am kind of wanting this guy to be around 13% once it has been diluted back down with the crystal syrup.

I might call wyyeast today and ask them about the expeted 12% tolerance on their brett strain and see how close it is.

Why not just let it ferment out, kill the yeast, then back sweeten with honey?

 

[seth8530]

What do you mean by kill the yeast? I do intend on carbonating, so I need to have some yeastie beasties. But, other than pasteurization their are not too many good ways to kill yeast. I would like to avoid pasteurizing my mead since honey is very vulnerable to heat damage.

 

[sweetcell]

So your major discontent with the plan is that you do not have a lot of faith in wyyeast's claim that the brett should peter out near 12%?

yup, exactly.

those alcohol tolerance numbers are always approximate and should come with an asterisk that reads "it depends". plenty of folks have gotten Chico to ferment to over 15%, despite a "12% max". i think this grain-of-salt approach goes double for brett.

please let us know what Wyeast says, i'm very curious to hear their take on it.

 

[seth8530]

Well, I contacted them, but it appears their experts are at a conference. However, I am going to bulk age this guy for over a year so if more sugars are needed if the brett is hungrier than expected I can always add more in later. When wyyeast gets back with me I will be sure to post the details of the conversation.

 

[GTG]

Gabf

 

[seth8530]

I really do not know how this will turn out.. But, I hope that everything at least works somewhat as intended.

Yesterday, I extracted sugar from 15 lbs of crystal 40 and 15 lbs of crystal 60. Approximate fermentability by sach on these guys is 38%. The final result from all this work including a sticky floor was 2 gallons of syrup with a specific gravity of around 1.183. The colour is really dark and has kind of a bitter chocolaty kind of taste with some interesting dark fruit stuff going on with it along with some roast and marshmallow flavors going on with it. I think that this will not only provide some nice hopefully unfermentable sugars, but it will also bring something to the table.

So pretty much if you correlate the specific gravity to the number of sugars in grams per liter and multiply out by the volume we get ourselves as having 3663 grams of sugar. And if you assume 38% are fermentable and 62% are not we get 2252 grams unfermentable and 1380 grams unfermentable.

If you divide these guys out by the target final volume ( 57 +7.57 liters) we get sugar contents in grams per liter of 33 and 21 grams per liter respectively. Which correlates to 1.01 and 1.006 respectively. So, if all the fermentable stuff ferments out and unfermentable stuff does not ferment ( the hope) we should end with a gravity of 1.010.




So here are some more details on the plan




1) Bring the initial gravity up to 1.125 using buckwheat honey. Ensure volume is around 57 liters.
2) Buffer with carbonate until PH rises to around 5.5
3) Add lacto starter ( rude boy here is already cooking)
4) Once PH drops to around 3.5 add the brett starter
5) Once the SG drops down to 1.058 ( 8% ABV) add in the ec-1118 starter
6) Once Gravity drops down to 1.01 add the 2 gallons (7.57 liters) of malt syrup. This should take the ABV from 15% ABV down to 13.29% ABV.
7) Let it ferment until it finally quits and rack to secondary with oak. The plan is to end up with a final gravity of around 1.010.


Nutrient plan.

Using this base equation

mg/L YAN (PPM) =(.10*(mg/L) fermaidK +.04*(mg/L)*FermaidO+.2(mg/l) DAP)

and realizing that the legal limit for fermaid K is 250 mg/l and that I will not be using DAP.

we get


350 =.10*(250 mg/L) fermaidK +.04*(mg/L)*FermaidO
325=.04(mg/l) Fermaid O
8125 mg/l fermaid O
250 mg/l fermaid K

Thus we need a total of 463 grams of fermaid O and 14.25 grams fermaid K



I will add 1/3 of the nutrient up front 1/6 at the end of lag phase 1/6 at the 1/3 sugar mark and 1/3 and the 1/2 sugar mark.

Thus add 14.25 grams fermaid K and 154 grams of fermaid O up front

Add 77 grams of fermaid O at the end of lag phase

add 77 grams of fermaid O at 1.083

add 144 grams of fermaid O at 1.0625

I am hoping to get this guy rolling pretty quickly. If all goes well I might go ahead and do the first 3 steps today or Tuesday.

 

[seth8530]

Alright, this project is underway.Looks like my intial volume will be 63 liters but I think that is going to be ok. I will still follow the nutrient schedule established for 57 liters. I added carbonate to the mead tonight so I will see if that gets me where I wanted to go. If not, I will see tomorrow. If all looks fine, I will pitch in the morning. Brett is going into the stir plate as we speak.











Starting gravity the day after mixing is at

1.134

PH day after adding carbonate is at 5.2.

All in all it looks like is everything is on target. The brett starter on the stir plate is showing signs of life and the live and kicking lacto culture is going in now.

So now, if all goes well we should end up at around 14.54 ABV after the addition of the malt ferments out and should be at 16.2 ABV after we hit 1.01 but prior to the malt addition. I think it is pretty safe to say that the brett will pretty much be out of the picture by then.

 

[sweetcell]

cool, keep us updated on this batch.

463 grams of fermaid O - damn that sounds like a lot! you've got a good basis for that number (calcs) so rock on. i'm just impressed by that amount.

 

[seth8530]

cool, keep us updated on this batch.

463 grams of fermaid O - damn that sounds like a lot! you've got a good basis for that number (calcs) so rock on. i'm just impressed by that amount.

Yeah, it is actually a slight under addition of fermaid O. The reason why so much is needed though is because mead is practically sugar water from a nutrition point of view so a good bit of it is needed. However, some would argue that fermaid O is much more efficent than DAP YAN so one could argue that I might need a good bit less. But since fermaid O does not have thimine or anything like that in it no need to worry about adding too much ( except for bacteria food). On the other hand fermaid K has some of those things to you need to be careful not to overdose it.

 

[seth8530]

So here are some pictures! The first two pictures are from the first day. The second picture is from 24 hours after pitching the lacto. Looks like it is either forming a pellicle or it is just honey stuff getting pushed to the top by co2 from the lacto. I will check the PH later today. If it is looking like it is getting pushed pretty low I will go ahead and add the brett and get the ec-1118 starter warming up.

 

[seth8530]

Wow! Checked this afternoon and this guy has a massive cap on top. PH was 4.15 so it is dropping quick. I am going to go ahead and pitch the brett starter so that it can get munching on those sugars. SG is 1.120, down from 1.134 so it looks like the lacto might have gotten hungry. I am going to go ahead and add the end of lag phase fermaid O addition since I am pretty sure we are pretty microbial stable now.

 

[seth8530]

Just checked the gravity.We are down to 1.082. Fermentation temperature has moved up to around 80 degrees with no assitance from the heater anymore. Before, it was holding around 75 with the heater on. Went ahead and added the 1/3 sugar break addition of fermaid O.

 

[smokinghole]

most, if not all, of those sugars will be available to brett. the stuff can digest the cellulose in wood.

Just a petpeeve. To my knowledge only some bacteria found in termite guts can ferment and utilize straight cellulose. Now on the other hand SOME brett, not all, have shown the ability to ferment cellobiose a beta 1-4 linkage. This requires betaglucosidase and not all bretts produce that enzyme.

 

[smokinghole]

Double post..."smart phone"

 

[seth8530]

Gravity is at 1.050 and the ABV is at 11%. I am going to go ahead and add the ec1118 and the last nutrient addition (144g fermaid O).

 

[seth8530]

Gravity is not at 1.040, so abv is now sitting at around 12.3%. Hopefully we will see in the next couple of days what is going to the mead SG wise. I am hoping for it to drop down to around 1.010 so that I can then add the crystal syrup to it.

 

[sweetcell]

Just a petpeeve. To my knowledge only some bacteria found in termite guts can ferment and utilize straight cellulose. Now on the other hand SOME brett, not all, have shown the ability to ferment cellobiose a beta 1-4 linkage. This requires betaglucosidase and not all bretts produce that enzyme.

cool, thanks for pointing this out.

 

[sweetcell]

Gravity is not at 1.040, so abv is now sitting at around 12.3%. Hopefully we will see in the next couple of days what is going to the mead SG wise. I am hoping for it to drop down to around 1.010 so that I can then add the crystal syrup to it.

1.134 --> 1.040 is 12.3% according to the traditional calculation, but 14.6% according to a new formula. i've plugged both formulas into a google spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YH5i90A2aOdLfD3frAi6RtP46P5HqYlt8H-h4-MJXJg/edit?usp=sharing. getting to 1.010 would be 16.3% or 18.7%, depending which formula you use/believe.

did Wyeast ever get back to you about the brett's alcohol tolerance?

 

[seth8530]

1.134 --> 1.040 is 12.3% according to the traditional calculation, but 14.6% according to a new formula. i've plugged both formulas into a google spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YH5i90A2aOdLfD3frAi6RtP46P5HqYlt8H-h4-MJXJg/edit?usp=sharing. getting to 1.010 would be 16.3% or 18.7%, depending which formula you use/believe.

did Wyeast ever get back to you about the brett's alcohol tolerance?

I have derived equations for ABV in the past, so I understand that their are differences between equations. However, until I see one benchmarked I really have no preference and I tend to stick with the typical 131*(OG-FG) just to stay line with what everyone else does. However, if I use 1.134-1.040 as the delta in gravity I get 11.25% using my equation. Which is fairly close in line with the 131*(Delta) equation.

I talked to the wyeast people and I got an email saying that if it is still moving past 12% it would be moving VERY slowly. So, pretty much combine that with my intent to bulk age for 1+years before putting into a bottle I think I will be ok on that front.

.6473*FG*(BrixI-BrixF-.729)/(1+.20448207*FG) BTW, if you are interested this is one that I derived.

 

[smokinghole]

cool, thanks for pointing this out.

I just like letting people know that not all brett ferments the same. The way bretts and bacteria were grouped before DNA analyses like ribosomal DNA, was sugar differentiation among other methods. If you look up Brettanomyce spp. on http://www.ncyc.co.uk/ you can see the ones they have banked and what sugars they ferment. You will notice once you start getting more complex than maltotriose it's hit or miss what they can ferment. It's like comparing different species of primates, they're related but not all can do the same thing. The same goes for the same species of brett. If found in the wild a Brettanomyces bruxellensis will not act identically to those offered by the various labs. The labs offer all their strains based on a single isolated cell that they then prop up for sale. The wild strain of the species will likely be genetically different due to the environment it resides. This is a big reason why the use ribosomal DNA for differentiation between species, ribosomal DNA should be nearly exact matches, but the entire genome of a interspecies strain may be fairly unique.

 

[seth8530]

Welp looks like things are getting a little tough. It would seem we are stalled out at around 1.040. ( right around the rated abv cap of the brett btw at 12.5 percent). It appears that the ec-1118 i inoculated with did not really catch on ( abv was higher than intended when I added the ec-1118 starter) so I am in the process of making a rescue starter. I currently have 2 liters of ec-1118 on the stir plate. Later today I am going to add 1 liter of the must to it. Then tomorrow afternoon if all appears to be going well with it I will add another 1.5 liters of must to it. I will then wait a day and pitch into the 60 liter starter.

I guess a wild project is not a fun project without a little bit of drama eh?

 

[seth8530]

Just added a few cups of the must to the rescue starter. I got it in a 5 gallon carboy at the moment. Total volume of the starter is around .75 gallons it looks like. If the starter seems happy I am going to add around a half gallon more must to it in a day or two.. The plan is to make a monster starter to get this guy back moving.

 

[seth8530]

So around 24 hours after adding the ec-1118 starter ( around 1.5 gallons in volume) we have the beginning signs of activity in the mead. Not sure how heated and happy it will get, but it is good to be seeings signs of life again.

 

[seth8530]

Just checked the gravity on this guy, looks like we are at 1.030. Perhaps at this rate we will hit around 1.010 this weekend and I can add the sugars and get this guy into secondary before too long.

 

[seth8530]

I went ahead and added the roughly 2 gallons of crystal 40/60 malt syrup. It brought the gravity up from 1.020 to around 1.035. Now, we hope that this guy wont ferment all the way dry.. Else, I might end up having a little more abv than I want.

The tartness from the lemon and the sour cherry flavour from the brett strain are really starting to shine through. I will give this guy some oak in the carboy and I really can't wait to see how it develops.

I really look forward to seeing how the crystal syrup adds to the body and over all structure as it dries out a bit.

OG 1.134

Grav before Syrup
1.020

Volume prior to syrup
60 liters
Volume after syrup
69 liters
gravity after syrup
1.035

ABV prior to Syrup 14.9%

ABV after syrup

12.98%

ABV after fermentation?!
???
seth8530 is online now Report Post

 

[seth8530]

Gravity is now down to 1.030. It is REALLY crawling now. I went and added some fermaid O to it and gave it a really good stir. Hopefully this will get this guy moving on a bit more briskly.

 

[seth8530]

Looks like we are stuck at 1.028 ish again. I will buy some UV-43 ( hardcore restart yeast) and some yeast hulls ( to strip out toxins). The plan is to add the yeast hulls then rack off of them, and pitch a strong UV-43 starter. The PH is 3.5, the abv is somewhere between 13.5 and 14.5 ish, there should be residual nutrient in the must, so at this point my lead to what is going on is a possible build of toxicity in the must.

 

[seth8530]

So, we got some major strangeness going on right now. The gravity was around 1.030 when I added the starter ( which included 1.5 gallons of water). The gravity is now 1.036-1.038 ( yes it has gone up) and the perception of sweetness has gone down, and the perception of sour has increased. It looks like their might be some minor activity going on from the yeast, but it is hard to tell. If it is doing anything, it is going full ahead slow.

So, here are my theories and I wonder what you guys think.

1) The gravity appears to have gone up from Co2 pushing the hydrometer up, the sweetness perception has gone down due to fermentation and the sour perception increased due to a drop in sugar.

2) The gravity has actually increased due to acetic acid formation converting less dense ethanol into more dense acetic acid. Thus raising the gravity and increasing the perception of acid and decreasing the sugar perception.

Any thoughts or opinions? I have been adventurous with this guy and have had this guy open the whole time.

 

[seth8530]

I was getting a bit concerned about the funk monster so I gave it 200 ppm sulfite and racked it into carboys. Gravity continued to move upward to close to 1.040. It has a kind of acidic taste not like I am used to seeing in lactic bacteria... but, not way out of touch for the style, but if it stays in its current state I am going to have to rack it onto cherries or something that will work with that flavor. With all the trouble getting this guy to ferment down, I am wondering if I ran out of sugars or something around that I could ferment when the guy first hit down to 1.030 and then dropped 6 points after I added the malt syrup.

... I am not overly optimistic at this current time about getting these guys to bottle carbonate.. but, I will test it out in a year or so and see if it looks like it will do anything.

I also put two of the carboys in with a stave of american oak each and the third 5 gallon caboy with a stave of French oak.. All medium +.

 

[seth8530]

So, knowing that thier is some intense sour component I went ahead and purchased 1 gallon of tart cherry concentrate ( from real cherries).

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001CFMGGI/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

I will add this to top off the head space in 1 of the carboys. If this causes re fermentation in this carboy then we know that the whole batch should be viable for bottle carbing... So, we should take care of 3 birds with one stone.