Brett saison fermentation time?

[burkalurk]

My roommates and I are pretty new to brewing (we have completed 4 batches so far, the one I'm asking about it our fifth), and since we all really like Brett beers we decided to try brewing a hoppy saison with Brett in it. We used the Wyeast 3711 saison strain and added dregs from two ~9 month old Orval bottles at the same time as the saison yeast. That was two weeks ago, and we are still getting occasional bubbles (it seemed to have finished after 4 or 5 days, but it started up again a few days later, after we dry-hopped it). For all of our previous beers we bottled after two weeks, but I am thinking this one might need more time. How long does fermentation typically take when using Brett in combination with an active yeast like 3711?


If you need more info, I used this recipe as a base: http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2014/07/saison-merican-hoppy-funk.html. We aren't really into rye, so I ended up using 9 lbs Pilsner, 1 lb wheat, .5 lb flaked barley (instead of oats, based on what we had), and .25 lb acidulated. The recipe says OG should be around 1.054, we didn't actually measure it but we followed pretty closely so it was probably close to that.

Thanks for any help!

 

[didinho]

Brett goes on fermenting everything for weeks. I suggest you to measure density after 3-4 weeks, leave it few more days and measure again. if it's stable, then bottle.
And check regularly if bottle pressure is ok or too much!

 

[beergolf]

Brett can take a long time to finish working. Even wwith a yeast like 3711 which will take the gravity low. The good brett flavor usually can take a few months to really shine. I usse Orval dregs a lot and uusualy give it about 4 months before bottling. Gravity may not drop after 6 weeks or so, but the flavor takes time to develop.

 

[secondbase]

I let my brett beers go 6 weeks minimum. Like beergolf said, the brett character will take time to develop, possibly months later. Leave it alone, get something else going and check on it in a few weeks.

 

[serum]

I've done a few with 3711 and orval dregs and what I did was to ferment out with 3711 and then rack to secondary and add the Orval dregs then. I only had 1 gallon demijohns so I used four and added dregs of one bottle to each of them.

I stashed these away for three months and they had a really nice amount of character after that even though the 3711 chewed through almost everything and it continues to change.

I was cautious with carbonation and used a bit less sugar but after 3 months I actually don't think I needed to be as most the work was done and they weren't as fizzy as my beers usually are. If you plan to bottle it and do that earlier make sure you use strong bottles or go easy on the priming until you've got a feel for it.

 

[burkalurk]

Thanks for the advice ! I'm thinking what I'll do is check the gravity next weekend (week 4) and the week after that, and if it seems pretty stable and has gotten below 1.004 or so I'll bottle it in some champagne bottles and saved Orval empties, and I'm thinking I'll do like 75-80% of the normal amount of sugar when I bottle it. I'm going for a pretty subtle brett character (basically a nice dry, hoppy French Saison with a little funk), so I probably won't wait more than two months, but I'm more worried about bottles blowing up. I will probably save a few of the champagne bottles for at least a few months (maybe longer if overcarbonation doesn't seem to be an issue) and see how it develops over time.

By the way, we kind of screwed up by dry-hopping it during a lull between the 3711 yeast bubbling dying down after a few days and the brett getting going more strongly a few days later (at which point I read more about brett and realized we were in for a much longer fermentation than usual... woops) and I'm wondering if I should throw in another oz of Nelson Sauvin and/or another oz of Citra like 5 days before I plan on bottling it just to make sure I get some nice fresh hop aromatics in there. The original dry hop addition was 2 oz Mosaic, 1 oz Nelson Sauvin, 1 oz Citra.