G_robertus
Well-Known Member
I haven't seen much posts on this yeast yet, so I figured I'd do some experimenting and make a thread with my results. I'll continue to post and update this post as I go along.
Using BR-8 for conditioning
Last week I bottled a braggot-tripel recipe with some BR-8. The beer accidentally overattenuated and the resulting ABV (9.8%) was higher than the advertised maximum (~8.5%), but still I figured it would provide an opportunity to test this yeast's limits. Other Fermentis yeasts can be pushed beyond their stated limits so we'll see.
Process:
I had 4.5 liters of an experimental recipe ready to bottle.
I rehydrated one gram of BR-8 in water and waited for about fifteen minutes, shaking the flask to create a paste. I mixed the rehydrated yeast by adding it to my bottling vessel and siphoning the beer on to to ensure proper mixture. Halfway through siphoning in the beer I added the priming solution and continued adding the beer. I rocked the vessel gently to ensure everything was mixed well and waited another ten minutes before bottling. I added extra water to both the rehydration water and priming solution to somewhat dilute the alcohol. I've yet to try any bottles, but I've already seen that there was a lot of trub present in all of the bottles that wasn't there at bottling. Some bottles also showed yeast coatings on the side of the bottle walls. These bottles were all thoroughly cleaned prior to packaging. I haven't checked all of them yet, but perhaps it's just a one off.
BR-8 as primary strain
The same day, I brewed a barleywine and used the last runnings plus extra grains to create what was supposed to be a bitter, but it the colour is a bit off and looks more like a somewhat dark mild. However, that wouldn't stop me from trying BR-8 as a primary strain. I needed to clear some grains and hops out anyway and these type of beers are always interesting.
The main goal of this experiment was to see if I can harvest BR-8 into ready to use frozen vials for conditioning in the future. Extra objectives were to see what a 100% BR-8 ferment is like (flavour, attenuation, ester production, phenolic profile, in time alcohol tolerance). I'll probably let it go for at least a month, checking gravity weekly. When the gravity stops changing I'll either package the beer or transfer to secondary with additional yeast to finish up any potential remaining sugars (maltose for example). In either case, I'll look to freeze some of the sludge as noted earlier, perhaps do a small test with drying the yeast and adding new wort to the remaining cake. The new wort is to see how reused yeast will behave and in time I plan to add high gravity wort on the second cake to check alcohol tolerance.
The yeast (3 grams) was pitched on Friday 27 April in five liter wort with 1.039 as starting gravity. The carboy was placed in the same chamber as the barleywine mother. The probe was attached to the barleywine and temperature set to 16°C. I allowed to barleywine to increase two degrees over two days and when activity slowed down on Monday morning, I removed the barleywine to continue at cellar temperature (ambient ~14°C). Since the BR-8 beer was not showing that much activity apart from some small CO2 streams I cranked the temp up to 25°C. Only on Tuesday I saw a lot of activity and a proper head forming. I had a blow out and was met with a huge funk and leathery aroma when I opened up the chamber later that day. I let it continue for a day without an airlock before returning the airlock to the carboy. The kräusen diminished over another three days and as of Monday 1 May it is more of a ring lacing the carboy. Gravity had already dropped to 1.009 the next day (ApAt 76%). The sample tasted somewhat tart, funky, leather-like, a bit thin and somewhat spicy/earthy.
It seems that BR-8 can indeed ferment pretty much all the sugars regular ale yeast can (76% ApAt). It also seems to do so quite rapidly. I'll continue to monitor the gravity and see whether it changes, but it's already quite far along in my opinion. The flavour profile is also full on Brettanomyces-like from the start, although they might also stem from the high fermentation temperature.
Closing remarks and follow up steps
From what I've only just experienced I find priming with BR-8 a bit messy. I'll definitely try dissolving it directly into the beer next time to see whether that makes a difference, even though Fermentis does not recommend this. It does however also work for bottling yeasts (both CBC-1 and F2), even though it's not recommended for those either. In hindsight I should've compared the 100% BR-8 fermentation to at least one other strain capable of high attenuation (US-05, for example). I'll definitely do that for the next round, either as a split batch or as jars of wort on the side. I'm also curious to see what a beer using this slurry is like and whether characteristics might be subdued due to the massive overpitch. I'm hoping reusing yeast will allow for a cooler fermentation so I can try a hoppy beer without volatilising all the hop aroma's. Two other experiments on the to-do list are to bulk condition with this yeast, perhaps for various times (one week and up to three months) and see whether the flavour will continue to develop over time, even if only with a short conditioning phase. I also want to see how persistent this yeast is and if I'll have trouble fermenting a beer using equipment that has handled BR-8. I'll continue using my regular cleaning and sanitation procedures to see if that is sufficient. Lastly I really want to try co-fermentation with this strain as I feel like it might even be used to create a (dare I coin the term) pseudo-lambic or at least a funky sour/mixed fermentation beer, possibly without bacteria. I'd like to try Philly Sour with BR-8 (same day pitch, delayed BR-8 pitch and conditioning with BR-8), Philly Sour with BR-8 and a saison strain and eventually BR-8 with bacteria and possibly other yeast.
After tasting the initial results I wonder what the influence of the main yeast strain is when co-fermenting. Does the ester profile matter on Brettanomyces kinetics and profile?
I'll attach the exact recipes and extra grains later. If I can snap some interesting images I'll attach those as well. I'll also update this post when I inspect the rest of the bottles I primed with BR-8.
Edit: the recipe
Recipes
BR-8 Braggot parti-gyle
OG: 1.081
FG: 1.007
ABV: 10.03%
IBU: 40
Boil Time: 60 minutes
Grain bill:
2.80 kg Swaen Pale Ale
1.30 kg Swaen Pilsner
0.55 kg Wheat Malt
0.20 kg Dingemans Biscuit Malt
0.20 kg Flaked Oats
0.45 kg caramelised honey ## for about fifteen minutes, not too dark
Mash:
20 minutes at 40 °C
45 minutes at 62 °C
20 minutes at 72 °C
10 minutes at 78 °C
Boil:
4 g Nugget (11.3% AA) @ FWH
8 g Bouclier (3% AA) @ 15 minutes
8 g Bouclier (3% AA) @ flame out
Yeasts:
5 g Lallemand Abbaye @ 18°C, increased to 21°C after one week.
1 g Fermentis Sabrew BR-8 at packaging
Note: I made a mixture of worts that resulted in 4.5 liters post-boil of 1.053 wort. The honey was dissolved in some of the last runnings and added at fermentation. The OG including honey was measured at 1.081 at the start of fermentation.
100% BR-8 bitter
OG: 1.039
FG: still fermenting
ABV: at least 3.9%
Boil time: 90 mins
Total IBU (calculated): 32 (Tinsenth)
The main beer grains:
2.70 kg Maris Otter
0.14 kg Raw Wheat
Main beer mash:
90 minutes at 65 °C
I collected about 10 liters of wort to boil down to 5.5 liters of barleywine. I collected some more low gravity wort (1.020 and to 1.010, third and fourth runnnigs respectively) to do a mini mash in and as sparge water for my bitter. I used the 1.020 wort to mash the grains and sparged with 1.010 wort until I had collected 8 liters of pre-boil wort.
Mini mash grain bill:
100 g Munton's Maris Otter
60 g GoldSwaen Dark Munich (Dark CaraMunich, 150 EBC)
30 g Paul's Chocolate Malt (900 EBC)
20 g Swaen Salty Caramel Malt (20 EBC)
Mash:
45 minutes at 65 °C
Boil:
2 g Nugget @ FWH (11% AA)
8 g Target/Hersbrucker @ 15 min (10.7%/4.8% AA) ## bags got mixed, I don't know the ratio)
8 g Target/Hersbrucker @ chilling (forgot my flame out addition)
Yeast:
Fermentis Safbrew BR-8, pitched at 16°C and increased 1°C a day to 18°C. After making space in the fermentation chamber I set the temperature to 25°C at day three.
Tasting notes:
The braggot at two weeks reminds me mostly of Orval, but stronger, mixed with generic young mead flavour.
Using BR-8 for conditioning
Last week I bottled a braggot-tripel recipe with some BR-8. The beer accidentally overattenuated and the resulting ABV (9.8%) was higher than the advertised maximum (~8.5%), but still I figured it would provide an opportunity to test this yeast's limits. Other Fermentis yeasts can be pushed beyond their stated limits so we'll see.
Process:
I had 4.5 liters of an experimental recipe ready to bottle.
I rehydrated one gram of BR-8 in water and waited for about fifteen minutes, shaking the flask to create a paste. I mixed the rehydrated yeast by adding it to my bottling vessel and siphoning the beer on to to ensure proper mixture. Halfway through siphoning in the beer I added the priming solution and continued adding the beer. I rocked the vessel gently to ensure everything was mixed well and waited another ten minutes before bottling. I added extra water to both the rehydration water and priming solution to somewhat dilute the alcohol. I've yet to try any bottles, but I've already seen that there was a lot of trub present in all of the bottles that wasn't there at bottling. Some bottles also showed yeast coatings on the side of the bottle walls. These bottles were all thoroughly cleaned prior to packaging. I haven't checked all of them yet, but perhaps it's just a one off.
BR-8 as primary strain
The same day, I brewed a barleywine and used the last runnings plus extra grains to create what was supposed to be a bitter, but it the colour is a bit off and looks more like a somewhat dark mild. However, that wouldn't stop me from trying BR-8 as a primary strain. I needed to clear some grains and hops out anyway and these type of beers are always interesting.
The main goal of this experiment was to see if I can harvest BR-8 into ready to use frozen vials for conditioning in the future. Extra objectives were to see what a 100% BR-8 ferment is like (flavour, attenuation, ester production, phenolic profile, in time alcohol tolerance). I'll probably let it go for at least a month, checking gravity weekly. When the gravity stops changing I'll either package the beer or transfer to secondary with additional yeast to finish up any potential remaining sugars (maltose for example). In either case, I'll look to freeze some of the sludge as noted earlier, perhaps do a small test with drying the yeast and adding new wort to the remaining cake. The new wort is to see how reused yeast will behave and in time I plan to add high gravity wort on the second cake to check alcohol tolerance.
The yeast (3 grams) was pitched on Friday 27 April in five liter wort with 1.039 as starting gravity. The carboy was placed in the same chamber as the barleywine mother. The probe was attached to the barleywine and temperature set to 16°C. I allowed to barleywine to increase two degrees over two days and when activity slowed down on Monday morning, I removed the barleywine to continue at cellar temperature (ambient ~14°C). Since the BR-8 beer was not showing that much activity apart from some small CO2 streams I cranked the temp up to 25°C. Only on Tuesday I saw a lot of activity and a proper head forming. I had a blow out and was met with a huge funk and leathery aroma when I opened up the chamber later that day. I let it continue for a day without an airlock before returning the airlock to the carboy. The kräusen diminished over another three days and as of Monday 1 May it is more of a ring lacing the carboy. Gravity had already dropped to 1.009 the next day (ApAt 76%). The sample tasted somewhat tart, funky, leather-like, a bit thin and somewhat spicy/earthy.
It seems that BR-8 can indeed ferment pretty much all the sugars regular ale yeast can (76% ApAt). It also seems to do so quite rapidly. I'll continue to monitor the gravity and see whether it changes, but it's already quite far along in my opinion. The flavour profile is also full on Brettanomyces-like from the start, although they might also stem from the high fermentation temperature.
Closing remarks and follow up steps
From what I've only just experienced I find priming with BR-8 a bit messy. I'll definitely try dissolving it directly into the beer next time to see whether that makes a difference, even though Fermentis does not recommend this. It does however also work for bottling yeasts (both CBC-1 and F2), even though it's not recommended for those either. In hindsight I should've compared the 100% BR-8 fermentation to at least one other strain capable of high attenuation (US-05, for example). I'll definitely do that for the next round, either as a split batch or as jars of wort on the side. I'm also curious to see what a beer using this slurry is like and whether characteristics might be subdued due to the massive overpitch. I'm hoping reusing yeast will allow for a cooler fermentation so I can try a hoppy beer without volatilising all the hop aroma's. Two other experiments on the to-do list are to bulk condition with this yeast, perhaps for various times (one week and up to three months) and see whether the flavour will continue to develop over time, even if only with a short conditioning phase. I also want to see how persistent this yeast is and if I'll have trouble fermenting a beer using equipment that has handled BR-8. I'll continue using my regular cleaning and sanitation procedures to see if that is sufficient. Lastly I really want to try co-fermentation with this strain as I feel like it might even be used to create a (dare I coin the term) pseudo-lambic or at least a funky sour/mixed fermentation beer, possibly without bacteria. I'd like to try Philly Sour with BR-8 (same day pitch, delayed BR-8 pitch and conditioning with BR-8), Philly Sour with BR-8 and a saison strain and eventually BR-8 with bacteria and possibly other yeast.
After tasting the initial results I wonder what the influence of the main yeast strain is when co-fermenting. Does the ester profile matter on Brettanomyces kinetics and profile?
I'll attach the exact recipes and extra grains later. If I can snap some interesting images I'll attach those as well. I'll also update this post when I inspect the rest of the bottles I primed with BR-8.
Edit: the recipe
Recipes
BR-8 Braggot parti-gyle
OG: 1.081
FG: 1.007
ABV: 10.03%
IBU: 40
Boil Time: 60 minutes
Grain bill:
2.80 kg Swaen Pale Ale
1.30 kg Swaen Pilsner
0.55 kg Wheat Malt
0.20 kg Dingemans Biscuit Malt
0.20 kg Flaked Oats
0.45 kg caramelised honey ## for about fifteen minutes, not too dark
Mash:
20 minutes at 40 °C
45 minutes at 62 °C
20 minutes at 72 °C
10 minutes at 78 °C
Boil:
4 g Nugget (11.3% AA) @ FWH
8 g Bouclier (3% AA) @ 15 minutes
8 g Bouclier (3% AA) @ flame out
Yeasts:
5 g Lallemand Abbaye @ 18°C, increased to 21°C after one week.
1 g Fermentis Sabrew BR-8 at packaging
Note: I made a mixture of worts that resulted in 4.5 liters post-boil of 1.053 wort. The honey was dissolved in some of the last runnings and added at fermentation. The OG including honey was measured at 1.081 at the start of fermentation.
100% BR-8 bitter
OG: 1.039
FG: still fermenting
ABV: at least 3.9%
Boil time: 90 mins
Total IBU (calculated): 32 (Tinsenth)
The main beer grains:
2.70 kg Maris Otter
0.14 kg Raw Wheat
Main beer mash:
90 minutes at 65 °C
I collected about 10 liters of wort to boil down to 5.5 liters of barleywine. I collected some more low gravity wort (1.020 and to 1.010, third and fourth runnnigs respectively) to do a mini mash in and as sparge water for my bitter. I used the 1.020 wort to mash the grains and sparged with 1.010 wort until I had collected 8 liters of pre-boil wort.
Mini mash grain bill:
100 g Munton's Maris Otter
60 g GoldSwaen Dark Munich (Dark CaraMunich, 150 EBC)
30 g Paul's Chocolate Malt (900 EBC)
20 g Swaen Salty Caramel Malt (20 EBC)
Mash:
45 minutes at 65 °C
Boil:
2 g Nugget @ FWH (11% AA)
8 g Target/Hersbrucker @ 15 min (10.7%/4.8% AA) ## bags got mixed, I don't know the ratio)
8 g Target/Hersbrucker @ chilling (forgot my flame out addition)
Yeast:
Fermentis Safbrew BR-8, pitched at 16°C and increased 1°C a day to 18°C. After making space in the fermentation chamber I set the temperature to 25°C at day three.
Tasting notes:
The braggot at two weeks reminds me mostly of Orval, but stronger, mixed with generic young mead flavour.
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